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The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

All the Transcripts, Videos of Interviews For, By and about Michael Jackson !

Please Post them here !

The Michael Jackson Interview with Tiger Beat- Sept. 1972

Michael Tells: ‘I’m A Girl Watcher!’

Have you ever had that weird feeling that someone was staring at you—watching your every move? If you have, you might discover that the someone is none other than Michael Jackson!

He was leaning against the tree, whistling a nameless little tune. The sky—so blue that it hurt the eyes to stare up too long. But that was all right because he wasn’t looking at the sky. His eyes were busy elsewhere!

Michael grinned to himself. There was nothing that could top what he was doing right now! Standing here so casually, with his thumbs stuck through his belt loops, no one could guess that he was practicing an art.

TAKES PRACTICE

Michael always says it with a smile but he’s serious when he calls girl watching ‘an art’!

When asked, he’ll explain that it takes a lot of practice to ‘eyeball chicks’ without being noticed. For one thing, Michael knows that it’s very rude to stare at a person openly. That’s why he’s perfected a technique that never gives him away. Why did he go through all this trouble?

‘Because I really don’t want to offend anyone by watching them. Some people really get uptight if they know someone is looking at them. But I have this weakness—I love looking at girls!’

‘Just watching a girl can give me the best reason to smile. Girls are something very special and you got to treat them that way. That’s why I always say don’t stare right at a chick. She’ll begin to fidget, wondering if her hair’s messed up or if her make-up is smeared. It’s kind of like going to an art gallery to see beautiful paintings. If you look at a painting just the right way, you get the most out of it!’

REASONS WHY

It’s very normal for a young, healthy, and great looking guy like Michael to enjoy girl watching. Every guy his age has put in time standing around just enjoying the lovely view of girls passing by! But, some guys like to look at girls and then rate them according to the way she’s dressed or how pretty she is. Not Michael. He has his own reasons.

‘The guys who are doing the rating are missing the whole point. They’re so busy counting up the scores that they’re not looking—I mean really looking at the girls.’

‘The way a girl walks. You can tell a lot from the walk. If she’s happy or sad—if she’s proud of being a girl. And then, there are the chicks that look so helpless that I want to rush over to them and put my arms around them!’

‘And if I’m lucky enough to be close enough to see her face—well, that’s like your favourite dessert after a fine meal!’

‘The eyes—do they wink at you? What makes them shine like they do? Love? Or just happy at being alive?’

‘And the mouth. Is it smiling at some secret? Or is she just doing her best to spread a little happiness by smiling at every person she sees?’

Michael’s list goes on and on. He can spend hours on a windy day seeing how the wind plays with long hair, short hair, dark hair, light hair. Or he can stare at the girls’ hands. Does she hold them still when she sits? Or are they part of her communicating methods? Do her hands come alive in conversation—gesturing wildly to emphasize her words?

But mostly, Michael just wants the time to watch and see the whole picture—the whole person. He likes everybody but the girls are still, for him, ’something very special!’

If he was one of those guys who rated the chicks he saw, Michael would be spending all his money on paper to add up the high scores for each girl. Because to him, each girl is a winner—simply by being a girl—by being someone special—by being the very girl he might be staring at this very moment—with a smile on his face.

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

It’s noon, and somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, the front shades of a row of condos are lowered against a hazy glare. Through the metal gate, the courtyard is silent, except for the distant splat of a fountain against its plastic basin. Then comes the chilling whine of a real-life Valley girl. “Grandmuther. I am not gonna walk a whole block. It’s bumid. My hair will be brillo.”
And the soothing counterpoint of maternal encouragement: “Be good pup, Jolie. Make for mama.”
All along the courtyard’s trimmed inner paths, poodles waddle about trailing poodle-cut ladies on pink leashes.
“Not what you expected, huh?” From behind a mask of bony fingers, Michael Jackson giggles. Having settled his visitor on the middle floor of his own three-level condo, Michael explains that the residence is temporary, while his Encino, California, home is razed and rebuilt. He concedes that this is an unlikely spot for a young prince of pop.
It is also surprising to see that Michael has decided to face this interview alone. He says he has not done anything like this for over two years. And even when he did, it was always with a cordon of managers, other Jackson brothers and, in one case, his younger sister Janet parroting a reporter’s questions before Michael would answer them. The small body of existing literature paints him as excruciatingly shy. He ducks, he hides, he talks to his shoe tops. Or he just doesn’t show up. He is known to conduct his private life with almost obsessive caution, “just like a hemophiliac who can’t afford to be scratched in any way.” The analogy is his.
Run this down next to the stats, the successes, and it doesn’t add up. He has been the featured player with the Jackson Five since grade school. In 1980, he stepped out of the Jacksons to record his own LP, Off the Wall, and it became the best-selling album of the year. Thriller, his new album, is Number Five on the charts. And the list of performers now working with him — or wanting to — includes Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg, Diana Ross, Queen and Jane Fonda. On record, onstage, on TV and screen, Michael Jackson has no trouble stepping out. Nothing scares him, he says. But this….
“Do you like doing this?” Michael asks. There is a note of incredulity in his voice, as though he were asking the question of a coroner. He is slumped in a dining-room chair, looking down into the lower level of the living room. It is filled with statuary. There are some graceful, Greco-Roman type bronzes, as well as a few pieces from the suburban birdbath school. The figures are frozen around the sofa like some ghostly tea party.
Michael himself is having little success sitting still. He is so nervous that he is eating — plowing through — a bag of potato chips. This is truly odd behavior. None of his brothers can recall seeing anything snacky pass his lips since he became a strict vegetarian and health-food disciple six years ago. In fact, Katherine Jackson, his mother, worries that Michael seems to exist on little more than air. As far as she can tell, her son just has no interest in food. He says that if he didn’t have to eat to stay alive, he wouldn’t.
“I really do hate this,” he says. Having polished off the chips, he has begun to fold and refold a newspaper clipping. “I am much more relaxed onstage than I am right now. But hey, let’s go.” He smiles. Later, he will explain that “let’s go” is what his bodyguard always says when they are about to wade into some public fray. It’s also a phrase Michael has been listening for since he was old enough to tie his own shoes.
Let’s go, boys. With that, Joe Jackson would round up his sons Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael. “Let’s go” has rumbled from the brothers’ preshow huddle for more than three-quarters of Michael’s life, first as the Jackson Five on Motown and now as the Jacksons on Epic. Michael and the Jacksons have sold over a 100 million records. Six of their two dozen Motown singles went platinum; ten others went gold. He was just eleven in 1970 when their first hit, “I Want You Back,” nudged out B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” for Number One.
Michael says he knew at age five, when he sang “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” in school and laid out the house, that something special was going on. Back then, such precocity frightened his mother. But years later it soothed hearts and coffers at Epic when Off the Wall sold over 5 million in the U.S., another 2 million worldwide and one of its hit singles, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” won him a Grammy. The LP yielded four Top Ten hit singles, a record for a solo artist and a feat attained only by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and by the combined efforts on the Grease and Saturday Night Fever soundtracks.
If a jittery record industry dared wager, the smart money would be on Michael Jackson. Recent months have found him at work on no fewer than three projects: his own recently released Thriller; Paul McCartney’s work-in-progress, which will contain two Jackson-McCartney collaborations, “Say, Say, Say” and “The Man”; and the narration and one song for the storybook E.T. album on MCA for director Steven Spielberg and producer Quincy Jones. In his spare time, he wrote and produced Diana Ross’ single “Muscles.” This is indeed a young man in a hurry. Already he is looking past the album he is scheduled to make with the Jacksons this winter. There is a chance of a spring tour. And then there are the movies. Since his role as the scarecrow in The Wiz his bedroom has been hip-deep in scripts.
At twenty-four, Michael Jackson has one foot planted firmly on either side of the Eighties. His childhood hits are golden oldies, and his boyhood idols have become his peers. Michael was just ten when he moved into Diana Ross’ Hollywood home. Now he produces her. He was five when the Beatles crossed over; now he and McCartney wrangle over the same girl on Michael’s single “The Girl Is Mine.” His showbiz friends span generations as well. He hangs out with the likes of such other kid stars as Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol, and ex-kid star Stevie Wonder. He gossips long distance with-Adam Ant and Liza Minnelli, and has heart-to-hearts with octogenarian Fred Astaire. When he visited the set of On Golden Pond. Henry Fonda baited fishhooks for him. Jane Fonda is helping him learn acting. Pen pal Katharine Hepburn broke a lifelong habit of avoiding rock by attending a 1981 Jacksons concert at Madison Square Garden.
Even E.T would be attracted to such a gentle spirit, according to Steven Spielberg, who says he told Michael, “If E.T. didn’t come to Elliott, he would have come to your house.” Spielberg also says he thought of no one else to narrate the saga of his timorous alien. “Michael is one of the last living innocents who is in complete control of his life. I’ve never seen anybody like Michael. He’s an emotional star child.”
Cartoons are flashing silently across the giant screen that glows in the darkened den. Michael mentions that he loves cartoons. In fact, he loves all things “magic.” This definition is wide enough to include everything from Bambi to James Brown.
“He’s so magic,” Michael says of Brown, admitting that he patterned his own quicksilver choreography on the Godfather’s classic bag of stage moves. “I’d be in the wings when I was like six or seven. I’d sit there and watch him.”
Michael’s kindergarten was the basement of the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He was too shy to actually approach the performers the Jackson Five opened for — everyone from Jackie Wilson to Gladys Knight, the Temptations and Etta James. But he says he had to know everything they did — how James Brown could do a slide, a spin and a split and still make it back before the mike hit the floor. How the mike itself disappeared through the Apollo stage floor. He crept downstairs, along passageways and walls and hid there, peering from behind the dusty flanks of old vaudeville sets while musicians tuned, smoked, played cards and divvied barbecue. Climbing back to the wings, he stood in the protective folds of the musty maroon curtain, watching his favorite acts, committing every double dip and every bump, snap, whip-it-back mike toss to his inventory of night moves. Recently, for a refresher course, Michael went to see James Brown perform at an L.A. club. “He’s the most electrifying. He can take an audience anywhere he wants to. The audience just went bananas. He went wild?and at his age. He gets so out of himself.”
Getting out of oneself is a recurrent theme in Michael’s life, whether the subject is dancing, singing or acting. As a Jehovah’s Witness, Michael believes in an impending holocaust, which will be followed by the second coming of Christ. Religion is a large part of his life, requiring intense Bible study and thrice-weekly meetings at a nearby Kingdom Hall. He has never touched drugs and rarely goes near alcohol. Still, despite the prophesied Armageddon, the spirit is not so dour as to rule out frequent hops on the fantasy shuttle.
“I’m a collector of cartoons,” he says. “All the Disney stuff, Bugs Bunny, the old MGM ones. I’ve only met one person who has a bigger collection than I do, and I was surprised — Paul McCartney. He’s a cartoon fanatic. Whenever I go to his house, we watch cartoons. When we came here to work on my album, we rented all these cartoons from the studio, Dumbo and some other stuff. It’s real escapism. It’s like everything’s all right. It’s like the world is happening now in a faraway city. Everything’s fine.
“The first time I saw E.T., I melted through the whole thing,” he says. “The second time, I cried like crazy. And then, in doing the narration, I felt like I was there with them, like behind a tree or something, watching everything that happened.”
So great was Michael’s emotional involvement that Steven Spielberg found his narrator crying in the darkened studio when he got to the part where E.T. is dying. Finally, Spielberg and producer Quincy Jones decided to run with it and let Michael’s voice break. Fighting those feelings would be counterproductive — something Jones had already learned while producing Off the Wall.
“I had a song I’d been saving for Michael called “She’s Out of My Life,” he remembers. “Michael heard it, and it clicked. But when he sang it, he would cry. Every time we did it, I’d look up at the end and Michael would be crying. I said, ‘We’ll come back in two weeks and do it again, and maybe it won’t tear you up so much. ‘Came back and he started to get teary. So we left it in.”
This tug of war between the controlled professional and the vulnerable, private Michael surfaces in the lyrics he has written for himself. In “Bless His Soul,” a song on the Jacksons’ Destiny LP that Michael says is definitely about him, he sings:
Sometimes I cry cause I’m confused
Is this a fact of being used?
There is no life for me at all
Cause I give myself at beck and call.
Two of the Jackson-written cuts on Thriller strengthen that defensive stance. “They eat off you, you’re a vegetable,” he shouts on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” “Beat It,” a tense, tough dance cut, flirts with paranoia: “You have to show them that you’re really not scared/You’re playin’ with your life, this ain’t no truth or dare/They’ll kick you, then they beat you/Then they’ll tell you it’s fair.”
Yes, he says, he feels used, declining specifics, saying only that in his profession, “They demand that, and they want you to do this. They think that they own you, they think they made you. If you don’t have faith, you go crazy. Like not doing interviews. If I talk, I say what’s on my mind, and it can seem strange to other peoples’ ears. I’m the kind of person who will tell it all, even though it’s a secret. And I know that things should be kept private.”
For his own protection, Michael has rigged himself a set of emotional floodgates, created situations where it’s okay to let it all out. “Some circumstances require me to be real quiet,” he says. “But I dance every Sunday.” On that day, he also fasts.
This, his mother confirms, is a weekly ritual that leaves her son laid out, sweating, laughing and crying. It is also a ritual very similar to Michael’s performances. Indeed, the weight of the Jacksons’ stage show rests heavily on his narrow, sequined shoulders. There is nothing tentative about his solo turns. He can tuck his long, thin frame into a figure skater’s spin without benefit of ice or skates. Aided by the burn and flash of silvery body suits, he seems to change molecular structure at will, all robot angles one second and rippling curves the next. So sure is the body that his eyes are often closed, his face turned upward to some unseen muse. The bony chest heaves. He pants, bumps and squeals. He has been known to leap offstage and climb up into the rigging.
At home, in his room, he dances until he falls down. Michael says the Sunday dance sessions are also an effective way to quiet his stage addiction when he is not touring. Sometimes in these off periods, another performer will call him up from the audience. And in the long, long trip from his seat to the stage, the two Michaels duke it out.
“I sit there and say, ‘Please don’t call me up, I am too shy,’” Jackson says. “But once I get up there, I take control of myself. Being onstage is magic. There’s nothing like it. You feel the energy of everybody who’s out there. You feel it all over your body. When the lights hit you, it’s all over, I swear it is.”
He is smiling now, sitting upright, trying to explain weightlessness to the earth-bound.
“When it’s time to go off, I don’t want to. I could stay up there forever. It’s the same thing with making a movie. What’s wonderful about a film is that you can become another person. I love to forget. And lots of times, you totally forget. It’s like automatic pilot. I mean — whew.”
During shooting for The Wiz, he became so attached to his Scarecrow character, the crew literally had to wrench him from the set and out of his costume. He was in Oz, and wasn’t keen on leaving it for another hotel room.
“That’s what I loved about doing E.T. I was actually there. The next day, I missed him a lot. I wanted to go back to that spot I was at yesterday in the forest. I wanted to be there.”
Alas, he is still at the dining-room table in his condo. But despite the visible strain, he’s holding steady. And he brightens at a question about his animals. He says he talks to his menagerie every day.”I have two fawns. Mr. Tibbs looks like a ram; he’s got the horns. I’ve got a beautiful llama. His name is Louie.” He’s also into exotic birds like macaws, cockatoos and a giant rhea.
“Stay right there,” he says, “and I’ll show you something.” He takes the stairs to his bedroom two at a time. Though I know we are the only people in the apartment, I hear him talking.
“Aw, were you asleep? I’m sorry….”
Seconds later, an eight-foot boa constrictor is deposited on the dining-room table. He is moving in my direction at an alarming rate.
“This is Muscles. And I have trained him to eat interviewers.”
Muscles, having made it to the tape recorder and flicked his tongue disdainfully, continues on toward the nearest source of warm blood. Michael thoughtfully picks up the reptile as its snub nose butts my wrist. Really, he insists, Muscles is quite sweet. It’s all nonsense, this stuff about snakes eating people. Besides, Muscles isn’t even hungry; he enjoyed his weekly live rat a couple of days ago. If anything, the stranger’s presence has probably made Muscles a trifle nervous himself. Coiled around his owner’s torso, his tensile strength has made Michael’s forearm a vivid bas-relief of straining blood vessels. To demonstrate the snake’s sense of balance, Michael sets him down on a three-inch wide banister, where he will remain, motionless, for the next hour or so.
“Snakes are very misunderstood,” he says. Snakes, I suggest, may be the oldest victims of bad press. Michael whacks the table and laughs.
“Bad press. Ain’t it so, Muscles?
The snake lifts its head momentarily, then settles back on the banister. All three of us are a bit more relaxed.
“Know what I also love?” Michael volunteers. “Manikins.”
Yes, he means the kind you see wearing mink bikinis in Beverly Hills store windows. When his new house is finished, he says he’ll have a room with no furniture, just a desk and a bunch of store dummies.
“I guess I want to bring them to life. I like to imagine talking to them. You know what I think it is? Yeah, I think I’ll say it. I think I’m accompanying myself with friends I never had. I probably have two friends. And I just got them. Being an entertainer, you just can’t tell who is your friend. And they see you so differently. A star instead of a next-door neighbor.”
He pauses, staring down at the living-room statues.
“That’s what it is. I surround myself with people I want to be my friends. And I can do that with manikins. I’ll talk to them.”
All of this is not to say that Michael is friendless. On the contrary, people are clamoring to be his friend.That’s just the trouble: with such staggering numbers knocking at the gate, it becomes necessary to sort and categorize. Michael never had a school chum. Or a playmate. Or a steady girlfriend. The two mystery friends he mentioned are his first civilians. As for the rest….
“I know people in show business.”
Foremost is Diana Ross, with whom he shares his “deepest, darkest secrets” and problems. But even when they are alone together, their world is circumscribed. And there’s Quincy Jones, “who I think is wonderful. But to get out of the realm of show business, to become like everybody else….”
To forget. To get out of the performing self.
“Me and Liza, say. Now, I would consider her a great friend, but a show-business friend. And we’re sitting there talking about this movie, and she’ll tell me all about Judy Garland. And then she’ll go, ‘Show me that stuff you did at rehearsal.’” He feints a dance move. “And I’ll go, ‘Show me yours.’ We’re totally into each other’s performance.”
This Michael does not find odd, or unacceptable. It’s when celebrity makes every gesture a performance that he runs for cover. Some stars simply make up their minds to get on with things, no matter what. Diana Ross marched bravely into a Manhattan shoe store with her three daughters and had them fitted for running shoes, despite the crowd of 200 that convened on the sidewalk. Michael, who’s been a boy in a bubble since the age of reason, would find that intolerable. He will go to only one L.A. restaurant, a health-food place where the owners know him. As for shopping, Michael avoids it by having a secretary or aide pick out clothes for him. “You don’t get peace in a shop. If they don’t know your name, they know your voice. And you can’t hide.”
He won’t say love stinks. But sometimes it smarts.
“Being mobbed hurts. You feel like you’re spaghetti among thousands of hands. They’re just ripping you and pulling your hair. And you feel that any moment you’re gonna just break.”
Thus, Michael must travel with the veiled secrecy of a pasha’s prized daughter. Any tourism is attempted from behind shades, tinted limo glass and a bodyguard’s somber serge. Even in a hotel room, he hears females squeal and scurry like so many mice in the walls.

The Rolling Stone Interview Part 2

“Girls in the lobby, coming up the stairway. You hear guards getting them out of elevators. But you stay in your room and write a song. And when you get tired of that, you talk to yourself. Then let it all out onstage. That’s what it’s like.”
No argument — it ain’t natural. But about those store dummies? Won’t it be just as eerie to wake up in the middle of the night to all those polystyrene grins?
“Oh, I’ll give them names. Like the statues you see down there.” He motions to the living-room crowd. “They’ve got names. I feel as if I know them. I’ll go down there and talk to them.”
A restless rhythm is jiggling his foot, and the newspaper clipping has long been destroyed. Michael is apologetic, explaining that he can sit still for just so long.

On an impulse, he decides to drive us to the house under construction. Though his parents forced him to learn two years ago, Michael rarely drives. When he does, he refuses to travel freeways, taking hour-long detours to avoid them. He has learned the way to only a few “safe” zones — his brothers’ homes, the health-food restaurant and the Kingdom Hall.
First, Muscles must be put away. “He’s real sweet,” Michael says as he unwinds the serpent from the banister. “I’d like you to wrap him around you before you go.”
This is not meant as a prank, and Michael will not force the issue. But fear of interviews can be just as deep-rooted as fear of snakes, and in consenting to talk, Michael was told the same thing he’s telling me now: Trust me. It won’t hurt you.

We compromise. Muscles cakewalks across an ankle. His tongue is dry. It just tickles. Block out the primal dread, and it could be a kitten whisker. “You truly believe,” says Michael, “with the power of reason, that this animal won’t harm you now, right? But there’s this fear, built in by the world, by what people say, that makes you shy away like that.”
Having politely made their point, Michael and Muscles disappear upstairs.
“Hi, Michael.”
A few such girlish messages are scratched into the paint of a somber security sign on the steel driveway gate at his house. There is a fence, dogs and guards, but girls still will loiter outside, in cars and in bushes.
As Michael conducts the tour of the two-story Tudor-style house, it’s clear that the room he will sleep in is almost monkish compared to those he has had designed for his pleasures and the ones reserved for his sisters Janet and LaToya, who pored over every detail of their wallpapered suites. “Girls are fussy,” he explains, stepping over a power saw in his bedroom. “I just don’t care. I wanted room to dance and have my books.”
The rooms Michael inspects most carefully are those marked for recreation. “I’m putting all this stuff in,” he says, “so I will never have to leave and go out there.” The “stuff” includes a screening room with two professional projectors and a giant speaker. And then an exercise room, one for videogames and another with a giant-screen video system. In addition, there is a huge chamber off the backyard patio, which has been designated the Pirate Room. It will be not so much decorated as populated. More dummies. But this set will talk back. Michael has been consulting with a Disney technician, the very man who designed the Audio-Animatronics figures for the Disneyland ride Pirates of the Caribbean. If all goes well, he will install several scowling, scabbard-waving buccaneers, wenches and sea dogs right here. “There won’t be any rides,” Michael says. “But there will be a pirate shootout, cannons and guns. They’ll just scream at one another and I’ll have the lights, sounds, everything.”
Pirates is one of his favorite rides in the Magic Kingdom. And Disneyland is one of the few public spots even he cannot stay away from. Sometimes Michael stops at a magic booth and buys one of those Groucho Masks — fake glasses with nose attached. But it’s better when the staff leads him through back doors and tunnels. It’s murder to cross the Court of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in daylight. “I tried to go just last night, but it was closed,” he says with some disbelief. “So was Knott’s Berry Farm.”
If you live in the funhouse, you usually don’t have to worry about such things. Michael has sung it himself:
Life ain’t so bad at all, if you live it off the wall.
When we arrive back at the condo, Michael finds that a test pressing of “The Girl Is Mine” has been delivered. This is business. He must check it before release, he explains, as he heads for a listen on the stereo in the den. Before the record is finished, he is punching at phone buttons. In between calls to accountants and managers, he says that he makes all his own decisions, right down to the last sequin on his stage suits — the only clothes he cares about. He says he can be a merciless interviewer when it comes to choosing management, musicians and concert promoters. He assesses their performances with the rigor of an investigative reporter, questioning his brothers, fellow artists and even reporters for observations. Though he truly believes his talent comes from God, he is acutely aware of its value on the open market. He is never pushy or overbearing, but he does appreciate respect. Do not ask him, for instance, how long he has been with a particular show-business firm. “Ask me,” he corrects, “how long they’ve been with me.”
Those who have worked with him do not doubt his capability. Even those to whom he is a star child. “He’s in full control,” says Spielberg. “Sometimes he appears to other people to be sort of wavering on the fringes of twilight, but there is great conscious forethought behind everything he does. He’s very smart about his career and the choices he makes. I think he is definitely a man of two personalities.”
When Michael was looking for a producer for his solo album, Quincy Jones was happy to hear from him. Jones knew Michael was in a special class. A few things tipped him off, he says. First there was the Academy Awards ceremony at which Jones watched twelve-year-old Michael deliver a trash-flick love song to a fascist rodent (”Ben”) with astounding poise. Years later, while working with him on The Wiz soundtrack, Jones says, “I saw another side. Watching him in the context of being an actor, I saw a lot of things about him as a singer that rang a lot of bells. I saw a depth that was never apparent, and a commitment. I saw that Michael was growing up.”
In the studio, Jones found that his professionalism had matured. In fact, Michael’s nose for things is so by-your-leave funky that Jones started calling him Smelly. Fortunately, when corporate rumblings feared the partnership too unlikely to work, Smelly hung tough and cocked an ear inward to his own special rhythms. Indeed, Off the Wall’s most memorable cuts are the Jackson-penned dance tunes. “Working Day and Night” with all its breathy asides and deft punctuation, could only have been written by a dancer. “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” the album’s biggest-selling single, bops along with that same appealing give-and-go between restraint and abandon. The song begins with Michael talking in a low mumble over a taut, single-string bass bomp:
“You know, I was wonderin’… you know the force, it’s got a lot of power, make me feel like a… make me feel like….”
Ooooooh. Fraidy cat breaks into disco monster, with onrushing strings and a sexy, cathartic squeal. The introduction is ten seconds of perfect pop tension. Dance boogie is the welcome release. The arrangement — high, gusting strings and vocals over a thudding, in-the-pocket rhythm — is Michael’s signature. Smelly, the funky sprite.
It works. Such a creature as Michael is the perfect pop hybrid for the Eighties. The fanzine set is not scared off by raunchy lyrics and chest hair. But the R-rated uptown dance crowd can bump and slide right along the greasy tracks. Thriller is eclectic enough to include African chants and some ripping macho-rock guitar work by Eddie Van Halen. It is now being called pop-soul by those into marketing categories. Michael says he doesn’t care what anybody wants to call it. Just how it all came about is still a mystery to him? as is the creative process itself.
“I wake up from dreams and go, ‘Wow, put this down on paper,’” he says. “The whole thing is strange. You hear the words, everything is right there in front of your face. And you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t write this. It’s there already.’ That’s why I hate to take credit for the songs I’ve written. I feel that somewhere, someplace, it’s been done and I’m just a courier bringing it into the world. I really believe that. I love what I do. I’m happy at what I do. It’s escapism.”

The Rolling Stone Interview Part 3

Again, that word. But Michael is right. There is no better definition for good, well-meaning, American pop. Few understand this better than Diana Ross, that Tamla teen turned latter-day pop diva. Her closeness to Michael began when she met the Jacksons.
“No, I didn’t discover them,” she says, countering the myth. Motown head Berry Gordy had already found them; she simply introduced them on her 1971 television special. “There was an identification between Michael and I,” she says. “I was older, he kind of idolized me, and he wanted to sing like me.”
She has been pleased to watch Michael become his own person. Still, she wishes he would step out even more. She says she had to be firm and force him to stay in his role as producer on “Muscles.”He wanted them to do it jointly. She insisted he go it alone.
“He spends a lot of time, too much time, by himself. I try to get him out. I rented a boat and took my children and Michael on a cruise. Michael has a lot of people around him, but he’s very afraid. I don’t know why. I think it came from the early days.”
Michael’s show-business friends, many of them women not thought of as especially motherly, do go to great lengths to push and prod him into the world, and to keep him comfortable. When he’s in Manhattan, Ross urges him to go to the theater and the clubs, and counteroffers with quiet weekends at her Connecticut home. In notes and phone calls, Katharine Hepburn has been encouraging about his acting.
Michael has recorded much of this counsel in notebooks and on tape. Visiting Jane Fonda — whom he’s known since they met at a Hollywood party a few years ago — on the New Hampshire set of On Golden Pond proved to be an intensive crash course. In a mirror version of his scenes with the stepgrandson in the movie, Henry Fonda took his daughter’s rock-star friend out on the lake and showed him how to fish. They sat on a jetty for hours, talking trout and theater. The night Fonda died, Michael spent the evening with Fonda’s widow, Shirlee, and his children, Jane and Peter. He says they sat around, laughing and crying and watching the news reports. The ease with which Michael was welcomed into her family did not surprise Jane Fonda. Michael and her father got on naturally, she says, because they were so much alike.
“Dad was also painfully self-conscious and shy in life,” she says, “and he really only felt comfortable when he was behind the mask of a character. He could liberate himself when he was being someone else. That’s a lot like Michael.
“In some ways,” she continues, “Michael reminds me of the walking wounded. He’s an extremely fragile person. I think that just getting on with life, making contact with people, is hard enough, much less to be worried about whither goest the world.
“I remember driving with him one day, and I said,’God, Michael, I wish I could find a movie I could produce for you.’ And suddenly I knew. I said, ‘I know what you’ve got to do. It’s Peter Pan.’ Tears welled up in his eyes and he said, ‘Why did you say that?’ with this ferocity. I said, ‘I realize you’re Peter Pan.’ And he started to cry and said, ‘You know, all over the walls of my room are pictures of Peter Pan. I’ve read everything that [author J.M.] Barrie wrote. I totally identify with Peter Pan, the lost boy of never-never land.’”
Hearing that Francis Coppola may be doing a film version, Fonda sent word to him that he must talk to Michael Jackson. “Oh, I can see him,” she says, “leading lost children into a world of fantasy and magic.”
In the book, that fantasy world lies “second to the right star, then straight on til morning” — no less strange a route, Fonda notes, than Michael’s own journey from Indiana.
“From Gary,” she says,”straight on to Barrie.”
All Children, Except one, grow up.
This is the first line of Michael’s favorite book, and if you ask Katherine Jackson if she finds this similar to what happened in her own brood of nine, she will laugh and say, oh yes, her fifth son is the one.
Five children — Maureen, Tito, Jackie, Jermaine and Marlon — are married and have families. LaToya is a very independent young woman. At thirteen, Janet was starring as a self-possessed ghetto twerp on the sitcom Good Times. Now she has a hit single of her own, “Young Love,” and appears in the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. Youngest brother Randy is already living on his own at twenty. Michael is sure he’d just die if he tried that.
“LaToya once told me she thinks that I overprotected them all,” Mrs. Jackson says. “But under the circumstances, I truly don’t think so.”
Marriage had brought her from east Indiana, just outside Chicago, to the chilly industrial town of Gary. A growing family had forced Joe Jackson to disband the Falcons, and R&B group he had formed with his two brothers. Playing Chuck Berry and Fats Domino covers in local clubs was as far as they got. The guitar went into the closet, and Jackson went to the steel mills as a crane operator. The family budget didn’t have a lot of slack for toys, but there was an old saxophone, a tambourine, some bongos and a homey patchwork of songs from Katherine’s childhood. What she could remember, she taught her children. “It was just plain stuff,” she says, “like ‘Cotton Fields’ and ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”
The breadth of the harmony grew with the family. Jackie, Jermaine and Tito started singing together, with Tito on guitar and Jermaine on bass. Then Marlon climbed aboard. Baby Michael, who liked to flail on the bongos, surprised his mother one day when she heard him imitating Jermaine’s lead vocals in his clear toddler’s falsetto. “I think we have another lead singer,” she told her husband. The brothers agreed.
“He was so energetic that at five years old, he was like a leader,” says Jackie, at thirty-one the oldest brother. “We saw that. So we said, ‘Hey, Michael, you be the lead guy.’ The audience ate it up. He was into those James Brown things at the time, you know. The speed was the thing. He would see somebody do something, and he could do it right away.”
“It was sort of frightening,” his mother says. “He was so young. He didn’t go out and play much. So if you want me to tell you the truth, I don’t know where he got it. He just knew.”
By the age of seven, Michael was a dance monster, working out the choreography for the whole group. Local gigs were giving way to opening slots at larger halls in distant cities. Joe Jackson spent weekends and evenings as chauffeur, road manager, agent and coach. He taught Michael how to work a stage and handle a mike. Michael does not remember his father making it fun; the boys always knew it was work. Rules were strict. Grades had to be kept up, even with five shows a night, or the offender would be yanked off the road. When Motown called, Joe took the boys to Detroit, and Katherine stayed in Gary with the rest of the children. She says she never really worried about her children until she went to a show and heard the screams from the audience. “Every time I’d go to a concert I’d worry, because sometimes the girls would get onstage and I’d have to watch them tearing at Michael. He was so small, and they were so big.”
There have been some serious incidents, too, one so chilling and bizarre it landed a young woman in a mental institution. So Katherine Jackson has made it her business to talk to some of these wild, persistent girls. What is so very crazy, she says, is that they do it in the name of love. “There are so many,” she says. “You have no idea what’s really on their minds. That’s why it’s going to be so hard for my son to get a wife.”
Michael is aware of, if not resigned to, the impossibility of that task. He might like to have children in the future, but says he would probably adopt them. For now, he has only to walk into one of his brothers’ homes and he’s instantly covered with nephews. He says he gets along with children better than adults, anyhow: “They don’t wear masks.”
Kids and animals can nose their way into Michael’s most private reserves. It’s the showbiz spook show that makes his own growing up so public and hard. He has borne, with patience and good humor, the standard rumors of sexchange operations and paternity accusations from women he has never seen. But clearly they have affected him. “Billie Jean,” on Thriller, is a vehement denial of paternity (”the kid is not my son”). In reality there has been no special one. Michael says that he is not in a hurry to jump into any romantic liaison.
“It’s like what I told you about finding friends,” he says. “With that, it’s even harder. With so many girls around, how am I ever gonna know?”
“Just here to see a friend.”
Michael is politely trying to sidestep an inquiring young woman decked out with the latest video equipment. She blocks the corridor leading to the warren of dressing rooms beneath the L.A. Forum.
“Can I tell my viewers that Michael Jackson is a Queen fan?”
“I’m a Freddie Mercury fan,” he says, slipping past her into a long room crowded with Queen band members, wives, roadies and friends. A burly man with the look of a linebacker is putting lead singer Freddie Mercury through a set of stretching exercises that will propel his road-weary muscles through the final show of the group’s recent U.S. tour. The band is merry. Michael is shy, standing quietly at the door until Freddie spots him and leaps up to gather him in a hug.
Freddie invited Michael. He has been calling all week, mainly about the possibility of their working together. They’ve decided to try it on the Jacksons’ upcoming album. Though they are hardly alike — Freddie celebrated a recent birthday by hanging naked from a chandelier — the two have been friendly since Michael listened to the material Queen had recorded for The Game and insisted that the single had to be “Another One-Bites the Dust.”
“Now, he listens to me, right Freddie?”
“Righto, little brother.”
The linebacker beckons. Freddie waves his cigarette at the platters of fruit, fowl and candy. “You and your friends make yourselves comfortable.”
Our escort, a sweet-faced, hamfisted bodyguard, is consulting with security about seat locations. There had been girls lurking outside the condo when Michael sprinted to the limousine, girls peering through the tinted glass as the door locks clicked shut. This was all very puzzling to Michael’s guest, who was waiting in the car.
He is a real friend, one of the civilians, so normal as to pass unseen by the jaded eyes of celebrity watchers. He has never been to a rock concert, nor has he ever seen Michael perform. He says he hopes to, but mainly, they just hang out together. Sometimes his younger brother even tags along. Most of the time they just talk “just regular old stuff,” says the friend. For Michael, it is another kind of magic.
At the moment, though, it’s show business as usual. Gossip, to be specific. Michael is questioning a dancer he knows about the recent crises of a fallen superstar. Michael wants to know what the problem is. The dancer mimes his answer, laying a finger alongside his nose. Michael nods, and translates for his friend: “Drugs. Cocaine.”
Michael admits that he seeks out such gossip, and listens again and again as the famous blurt out their need for escape. “Escapism,” he says. “I totally understand.”
But addictions are another thing. “I always want to know what makes good performers fall to pieces,” he says. “I alway try to find out. Because I just can’t believe it’s the same things that get them time and time again.” So far, his own addictions?the stage, dancing, cartoons — have been free of toxins.
Something’s working on Michael now, but it is nothing chemical. He’s buzzing like a bumblebee trapped in a jelly jar. It’s the room we’re in, he explains. So many times, he’s stretched and bounced and whipped up on his vocal chords right here, got crazy in here, pumping up, shivering like some flighty race horse as he wriggled into his sequined suit.
“I can’t stand this,” lie fairly yells. “I cannot sit still.”
Just before he must be held down for his own good. Randy Jackson rockets into the room, containing his brother in a bear hug, helping him dissipate some of the energy with a short bout of wrestling. This is not the same creature who tried to hide behind a potato chip.
Now Michael is boxing with the bodyguard, asking every minute for the time until the man mercifully claps a big hand on the shoulder of his charge and says it: “Let’s go.”
Mercury and company have already begun moving down the narrow hall, and before anyone can catch him. Michael is drawn into their wake, riding on the low roar of the crowd outside, leaping up to catch a glimpse of Freddie, who is raising a fist and about to take the stairs to the stage.
“Ooooh, Freddie is pumped,” says Michael. “I envy him now. You don’t know how much.”
The last of the band makes the stairs, and the black stage curtain closes.

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

The Rock's Backpages Flashback:
Michael Jackson On The Jacksons--And More (1979)Posted Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:05pm PDT
by John Abbey in Rock's Backpages

31 years ago, Blues and Soul's John Abbey celebrated a decade in the life of the Jacksons--and talked to Michael about his imminent Off the Wall album…--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages.

The Jacksons' story really goes back, I guess, to when Joe and Katherine Jackson married and then settled in Gary, Indiana. That was the early '50s and Joe doubled working a crane and playing guitar/singing with a local group called the Falcons--but not the Falcons of "You're So Fine" or "I Found A Love" fame. The group worked the Chicago area for years and it kindled Joe's dream to groom his own children into an entertainment unit..

The whole dream started to take shape when his five sons--already dubbed the Jackson 5--won a local talent show at the Roosevelt High School back in 1965. They sang "My Girl." The next two years saw them win two more talent contests, with the latter winning a guest appearance at Chicago's Regal Theatre--on a show headlined by Smokey Robinson..

"At the time, they used to sing mostly Motown songs," recalls Joe. "You know, things like 'My Girl,' 'Get Ready'--and two songs that Sam & Dave had done, 'You Don't Know Like I Know' and 'Hold On I'm Comin.' Then we did 'Tobacco Road.' And all of the other hits of the day. Michael was always the lead singer; Jermaine was back-up lead.".

The success on a local basis resulted in the brothers making one record for the local Steeltown label. Tagged "I'm A Big Boy Now," it was produced by Gordon Keith and was a hit in the surrounding four states. It also lead to the Jackson 5 getting their first paid gig--at Mr. Lucky's for the princely sum of $5!.

During 1968 and 1969, the Jackson 5 had progressed to the point where they were working the Apollo in Harlem, Chicago's Regal Theatre, Philly's Uptown and the Howard Theatre in Washington (weren't they great days!). Naturally, they were rubbing shoulders with some of the major acts of the day..

Although Gladys Knight was the first person to actually openly encourage the young group to contact Motown, Bobby Taylor is the man most instrumental with the company taking an interest in them. And once their first album was recorded, Diana Ross took a great interest in them--so much so that she introduced them to America on her TV Special and had the first album dubbed Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5..

The five brothers soared to international prominence, surpassing any of the earlier legendary legion of Motown groups. Their first single, "I Want You Back" attained the No. 1 spot on both pop and R&B charts in America within six weeks..

Berry Gordy took such an avid interest in them that he personally used to get involved in their recording dates during the early days--which in itself is a tribute to the esteem he held them in. Their seven-year stay with Motown resulted in six Platinum singles and ten Gold singles..

In 1975--at the same time that Jermaine left the group to go solo and was replaced by Randy--the Jackson 5 left Motown and signed with CBS. Since Motown registered and, therefore, owned the name 'The Jackson 5,' they became simply the Jacksons..

"Maybe one day we'll be able to find a way of getting the name back," Joe wistfully says..

On the signing with CBS/Columbia, Joe says: "We were offered more money, our own publishing company and control of our recording--all of the things that we most wanted. Since moving to CBS, the guys have become established as writers and producers and all of the things have happened as CBS said. In short, we got what we wanted and our main aim now is to perfect it.".

The first CBS album--simply titled The Jacksons--was produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. "I had tried to get them to produce us at Motown when I felt we needed a new direction but it wasn't done," Joe recalls. "So, when we got to CBS, of course, it was that much easier because of their ties with the company. To me, Gamble and Huff are the best producers in the world.".

Although the success ratio with CBS comes nowhere near the heady early days at Motown, the Jacksons all feel they are better established today than they have ever been. They have become producers and songwriters and there is talk now that they may take on outside productions. To date, only lack of time has prevented this..

They have taken on co-management from Weisner-DeMann, although Joe still pulls most of the strings. This has permitted a fuller background organization. Regency Artists has taken over agency for booking the concert dates around the world. And Rodgers & Cowan have taken over Press liaison..

In short, the work load has been divided between several established and well-organized corporation. This can do nothing but good for the Jacksons..

They all cite Destiny as the main change in their direction because it is their first self-produced, self-penned album..

One of the nicest things about the whole family is that they genuinely appreciate their fans. Perhaps that is why nearly 100,000,000 records have been sold around the world in their first ten years. Perhaps that is why they are one of the few American groups who are truly international, because they are just as popular in Africa, in Europe, in Australia and in Japan--as they are at home in America..

Michael's success in The Wiz gives some indication of the horizon broadening that they are involved in. They have always been pioneers--all that is left to achieve in the next decade is to become the first group to play "live" on the Moon--and it really isn't impossible when you marry up technical advances in space and the unique drive the Jacksons possess..

Suffice to say that I am sure that in ten years time, Blues & Soul will still be writing about the Jacksons..

Michael

B&S: What sticks in your mind mostly from the ten years, Michael?

MJ: Doing great things! I totally enjoy what I'm doing and bringing joy into people's lives. To me, all joy is young and if I can bring one second of joy into a child or a grown-up's life, then I have achieved my lifetime ambition. That's why we have been traveling all over the world entertaining people for these ten years. We have played for kings and queens all over the world--things I never dreamed of when I was small. People said: "You kids are gonna go far." But I never dreamed this far! So, I'm thankful. It's such a wonderful feeling to make hungry, crying children smile..

B&S: Do you find you get more satisfaction from your achievements as you go along?

MJ: Yes, much more. It's definitely what keeps us going at times--although I do feel more comfortable on stage than anywhere else..

B&S: Is the success you had personally with The Wiz going to lead you into more such things?

MJ:Yes, other films. There's a Bill Robinson movie called The Bojangles Story. And another movie called Summer Stock that is about young boys trying to get into the theatre. Then there is A Chorus Line, which is a play being turned into a movie..

B&S: Is this going to alter your status in the group? Will you always be in the group?

MJ:I hope so. My brothers are good writers and they have so much talent and ability and together there are so many things that we still want to achieve..

B&S: How about your solo career. You have just released your first solo single since leaving Motown ("You Can't Win" from The Wiz soundtrack). Is it the first of many?

MJ:The only reason why I didn't do it before is because we wanted to take care of the group completely first. Now I am working with Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Paul McCartney on an album. Paul has written a song for me called "Girlfriend" that I have already recorded. And Stevie has written a terrific song for me that I have done a rough on, too--with Louis Johnson playing bass. There will be an album this summer. Oh, and there is a beautiful song on it called "She's Out Of My Life" that was written by Tom Bahler. It's so pretty that I think it could be another "Ben."

B&S: Would you say you have outgrown your teenybopper/"Rockin' Robin" days?

MJ:No--it's fine by me because we like to give the people exactly what they want. There's no use creating music that people don't want. The object is to bring joy into other people's lives..

B&S: What do you want to achieve in the next ten years?

MJ:There's so much...but I do want to choreograph certain films that I do. I also want to do some directing. The main aim, though, is to keep people happy..

B&S: Do you have a message for your fans?

MJ:There's a line that I do at the end of The Wiz that I feel is especially effective. It goes like this "Success, fame and fortune--they are all illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship that two people can share." I think that sums it up because the real bottom line is love and friendship. The rest just comes afterwards. I like to think of everybody I entertain as being a friend. But I do particularly love children..

B&S: Over the next ten years, how many children do you expect to have of your own then!

MJ:About twenty! I want to adopt kids, too. I'm crazy about them. It is the innocence they have--they are the way I wish the world really was because they are not phony and they don't know prejudice. Prejudice is taught. If the world were full of only children, it would be a much better place..

Tito

B&S: Which are the events of the ten years that stick most in your mind?

TJ: The very first time I heard "I Want You Back" on the radio. That will always stick in my mind. The one record we had before--"I'm A Big Boy Now"--only got played locally so I don't count that..

B&S: What was the feeling at the time because you must have all still been at school?

TJ: It was great because all of the other kids in the neighborhood wanted the same thing--to entertain professionally and have your records played all over the world..

B&S: Looking back, do you think it all happened too quickly for you?

TJ: No, I think it happened at a good pace. I'm very happy about the way the ten years have gone for us and I hope the next ten years are just as exciting. I think I would do it the same way again if I had to..

B&S: What are your plans for the next ten years?

TJ: We are starting to produce records now and to write more songs. And we want to go into movie scores and into producing other acts. There is nothing definite that I can talk about but plans are well advanced on both things. We have our own production company called Peacock Productions and it will all go through that..

B&S: I presume you are going to be producing your own next album.

TJ: Yes, it's something we always wanted to do. But we have been lucky enough to work with a lot of brilliant producers and to be able to learn from them..

B&S: Who are the ones you learned most from?

TJ: I'd have to say the Corporation and Hall Davis, and Gamble and Huff. But they all had certain things to teach us..

B&S: You have been lucky enough to gain so much experience and still to be so young, Tito.

TJ: Exactly..

B&S: Which are the other events that stick in your mind from the ten years?

TJ: Going overseas for the first time, that was very exciting. That was to Britain in 1972. The fact that they drive on the other side of the street took some getting used to at the time, though!!! But it's a lovely place to perform and I feel like London is a second home to me. It is a different style of life and atmosphere but it suits me perfectly.Marlon.

B&S: What are the things that stick most in your mind from the ten years?

MJ:Traveling, seeing the different cultures and learning different things--they are the things that stick most in my mind. Playing for the Queen of England, the Jubilee. Having been to Europe, Africa, Australia and all across the world. And being able to see the poverty around the world for myself. I think people in the States are quite lucky because some people overseas have life so much harder than we do here..

B&S: Do you think the Jacksons could have made it if you had been born in another country?

MJ:I think it's a God-given gift. After all, Bob Marley has made it from Jamaica. But it's also down to management and how you go about doing things and how you present yourself..

B&S: What do you think the biggest single reason is why you have survived ten years at the very top?

MJ:It's how you handle yourself, I think. We like to do unique things--things that nobody has ever done. That has given us longevity..

B&S: Do you think that having success virtually from day one has helped?

MJ: It goes both ways. It gave us work very quickly and we have never stopped. Sure, after a 62-day tour, you're ready to go home; then, when you get home for a few days, you're ready to go back out there. It's give and take..

B&S: What about the next ten years? With the Destiny album, you are getting more involved in writing and producing--is that a new direction for you to follow?

MJ:We always wanted to get into producing and writing so Destiny is just a start. I think you'll see us getting deeper into that – and also into producing other acts, too. More movie scores--and acting from the other brothers, as well as Michael. And we also plan to become more active in our song publishing company..

B&S: Where would you like to be ten years from now?

MJ:Where I am today--only a bit further on!.

B&S: Do you have a message for your fans?

MJ:Yes, I would like to say how much I appreciate what they have done for us. They've been behind us 100% and without them, we wouldn't be where we are today. We love them all..

B&S: When is the next Jacksons tour, by the way?

MJ:We are doing a European and African tour now. Then, in April, we are doing a mini tour in the States, with a major cities tour in the summer.

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

Interview Magazine, with Michael Jackson - Oct 1982

By Bob Colacello and Andy Warhol (Interviewers)

In August of 1982, Interview’s executive editor, Bob Colacello, interviewed Michael Jackson, then 23, at the condominium in the San Fernando Valley that the singer was renting with his family while their house nearby was being redecorated. (Andy Warhol called from New York midway through their conversation.) Jackson, of course, was already famous for his work with his brothers in the Jackson Five, but his first adult solo album, Off the Wall (1979), released three years earlier, had made him a star in his own right. When this interview took place, he was at work on a storybook companion record for the Steven Spielberg film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)—hence the E.T. references—and was fielding an array of film-role offers. He was also finishing up recording Thriller (1982), which would go on to become the best-selling album of all time. The following is an excerpt from their interview as it originally appeared as the cover story of the October 1982 issue.

BOB COLACELLO: Did you like performing as a child? Did you always love it?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Always did. I always enjoyed the feeling of being onstage—the magic that comes. When I hit the stage it’s like all of a sudden a magic from somewhere just comes and the spirit just hits you and you just lose control of yourself. I came onstage at Quincy’s [Jones] concert at the Rose Bowl and I did not want to go onstage. I was ducking and hiding and hoping he wouldn’t see me hiding behind people when he called me on. Then I went up there and I just went crazy. I started climbing up the scaffold, the speakers, the light gear. The audience started getting into it and I started dancing and singing and that’s what happens.

COLACELLO: How do you compare acting to performing on the stage?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I love both. Acting is the cream of the crop. I love performing. It’s a phenomenal getaway. If you want to really let out everything you feel, that’s the time to do it. With acting, it’s like becoming another person. I think that’s neat, especially when you totally forget. If you totally forget, which I love to do, that’s when it’s magic. I love to create magic—to put something together that’s so unusual, so unexpected that it blows people’s heads off. Something ahead of the times. Five steps ahead of what people are thinking. So people see it and say, “Whoa I wasn’t expecting that.” I love surprising people with a present or a gift or a stage performance or anything. I love John Travolta, who came off that Kotter show. Nobody knew he could dance or do all those things. He is like—boom. Before he knew it, he was the next big Brando or something.

COLACELLO: It seems that what really motivates you is your desire to entertain people, to please people. What about fame and money? Could you imagine not being famous or does being famous bother you?

MICHAEL JACKSON: It never has bothered me except sometimes when you want peace. Like you go to the theater and you say, “Nobody’s bothering me tonight, I’m wearing my hat and glasses and I’m going to enjoy this film and that’s all there is to it.” You get in there and everybody’s watching and staring at you and at the climax of the film somebody taps you on the shoulder for an autograph. You just feel like you can’t get away . . .

COLACELLO: You’re very close to your parents. Do they live out here in L.A.?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Daydreaming most of the day. I get up early and get ready for whatever I’ve got to do, songwriting or whatever it is. Planning the future and stuff.

COLACELLO: Are you optimistic about the future?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yes. I always like to plan ahead of time and follow up . . .

COLACELLO: Do you care about fashion much?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No, I care about what I wear onstage. You know what I love, though? I don’t care about everyday clothes. I love putting on an outfit or a costume and just looking at myself in the mirror. Baggy pants or some real funky shoes and a hat and just feeling the character of it. That’s fun to me.

COLACELLO: You like to act a lot just in everyday life?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I love it so much. It’s escape. It’s fun. It’s just neat to become another thing, another person. Especially when you really believe in it and it’s not like you’re acting. I always hated the word acting—to say, “I’m an actor.” It should be more than that. It should be more like a believer.

COLACELLO: But isn’t that a little frightening when you believe it totally?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No, that’s what I really love about it. I just like to really forget.

COLACELLO: Why do you want to forget so much? Do you think life is really hard?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No, maybe it’s because I just like jumping in other people’s lives and exploring. Like Charlie Chaplin. I just love him to death. The little tramp, the whole gear and everything, and his heart—everything he portrayed on the screen was a truism. It was his whole life. He was born in London, and his father died an alcoholic when he was six. He roamed the streets of England, begging, poor, hungry. All this reflects on the screen and that’s what I like to do, to bring all of those truths out . . .

COLACELLO: Do you sometimes feel as though you missed out on childhood because you’ve always been performing in the adult world?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Sometimes.

COLACELLO: But you like people older than yourself, experienced people.

MICHAEL JACKSON: I love experienced people. I love people who are phenomenally talented. I love people who’ve worked so hard and been so courageous and are the leaders in their fields. For me to meet somebody like that and learn from them and share words with them—to me that’s magic. To work together. I’m crazy about Steven Spielberg. Another inspiration for me, and I don’t know where it came from, is children. If I’m down, I’ll take a book with children’s pictures and look at it and it will just lift me up. Being around children is magic . . .

COLACELLO: Are you interested in art?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I love to draw—pencil, ink pen—I love art. When I go on tour and visit museums in Holland, Germany or England—you know those huge paintings?—I’m just amazed. You don’t think a painter could do something like that. I can look at a piece of sculpture or a painting and totally lose myself in it. Standing there watching it and becoming part of the scene. It can draw tears, it can touch you so much. See, that’s where I think the actor or performer should be—to touch that truth inside of the person. Touch that reality so much that they become a part of what you’re doing and you can take them anywhere you want to. You’re happy, they’re happy. Whatever the human emotions, they’re right there with you. I love realism. I don’t like plastics. Deep down inside we’re all the same. We all have the same emotions and that’s why a film like E.T. touches everybody. Who doesn’t want to fly like Peter Pan? Who doesn’t want to fly with some magic creature from outer space and be friends with him? Steven went straight to the heart. He knows—when in doubt, go for the heart . . .

[Andy Warhol calls from New York.]

ANDY WARHOL: Hello?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Hi.

WARHOL: Gosh, this is exciting. You know, every time I use my Walkman I play your cassette on it . . . How have you been?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’ve been in the studio a lot, writing lyrics and working on songs and stuff.

WARHOL: I might go see an English rock group at the Ritz tonight called Duran Duran. Do you know them?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No.

WARHOL: I went to see Blondie at the Meadowlands last week.

MICHAEL JACKSON: How was Blondie?

WARHOL: She was great. She’s so terrific. Do you know her?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No, I never met her.

WARHOL: Well, when you come to New York I’ll introduce her. Going on tour is about the hardest thing to do in the world.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Tour is something—the pacing. But being onstage is the most magic thing about it . . .

WARHOL: Did you ever think you’d grow up to be a singer?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I don’t ever remember not singing, so I never dreamed of singing.

WARHOL: Do you go out a lot or stay home?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I stay home.

WARHOL: Why do you stay home? There’s so much fun out. When you come to New York we’ll take you out.

MICHAEL JACKSON: The only time I want to go out is when I’m in New York.

WARHOL: Do you go to the movies?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Oh, yes. We’re going to be working on the E.T. album. I had a picture session with E.T. and it was so wonderful . . . He’s hugging me and everything.

WARHOL: I like Tron. It’s like playing the video games. Have you seen it?

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

Soul Beat talks to Michael Jackson - Interviewer Sylvie Simmons- 1983

Writing for the leading US rock magazine Creem, interviewed the 24-year-old star on the set for the video of 'Beat It' - one of the many classic songs from his new LP, Thriller, which was to become the biggest selling album of all time. She found a driven artist at the height of his powers.

I talked to Jackson before the video shoot. In a three-story condo in the San Fernando Valley - where Michael is staying while they rebuild his family house five miles down the road - filled with books, plants, art-work, animals, organic juices and nephews and cousins and siblings of the Jackson family.

All this time, a thin, long-fingered man in a brown leather jacket too big for him, is sipping orange juice, gazing wide-eyed and curious at the dancers and the monitors, nodding his head soberly in time to the music, his foot on automatic tap. Michael Jackson looks fascinated by the whole thing. It's three in the morning before he gets his go. He's to come in, break up the fight and lead them dancing out of a warehouse. Pied Piper meets Peter Pan. Dawn was breaking by the time they finished; Michael Jackson wasn't.

"James Brown, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry and Little Richard - I think they had strong influences on a lot of people, because these were the guys who really got rock'n'roll going. I like to start with the origin of things, because once it gets along it changes. It's so interesting to see how it really was in the beginning."

Michael's got a tiny, otherworldly voice. You've heard him described as childlike and angelic. You will again. He's painfully shy, stares at his hands, his shoes, his sister, anywhere he can forget there's an interviewer around.

He goes on: "I like to do that with art also. I love art. Whenever we go to Paris I rush to the Louvre. I just never get enough of it! I go to all the museums around the world. I love art. I love it too much, because I end up buying everything and you become addicted. You see a piece you like and you say, Oh God, I've got to have this ...

"I love classical music. I've got so many different compositions. I guess when I was real small in kindergarten and hearing Peter and the Wolf and stuff - I still listen to that stuff, it's great, and Boston Pops and Debussy, Mozart, I buy all that stuff. I'm a big classical fan. We've been influenced by all kinds of different music - classical, R&B, folk, funk - and I guess all those ingredients combine to create what we have now.

"I wouldn't be happy doing just one kind of music or label ourselves. I like doing something for everybody... I don't like our music to be labelled. Labels are like ... racism."

"Yes. That's what I'm here for really. It's like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci," his voice trails off; he looks torn between sounding immodest and telling the truth, which, as he sees it, is that talent comes from God anyway, so don't go patting him on the back. "Still, today, we can see their work and be inspired by it."

So, as long as there are stereos, Michael Jackson lives?

"Yes. I'd like to just keep going and inspire people and try new things that haven't been done."

To what extent has his belief in divinity influenced his life?

"I believe in God. We all do. We like to be straight, don't go crazy or anything. Not to the point of losing our perspective on life, of what you are and who you are. A lot of entertainers, they make money and they spend the rest of their life celebrating that one goal they reached, and with that celebration comes the drugs and the liquor and the alcohol. And then they try to straighten up and they say, 'Who am I? Where am I? What happened?' And they lost themselves, and they're broken. You have to be careful and have some kind of discipline."

Is he a very self-disciplined person? "I'm not an angel, I know. I'm not like a Mormon or an Osmond or something where everything's straight. That can be silly sometimes. It goes too far."

It must be hard being an angel when you're acknowledged as one of the sexiest performers around, have girls camping in your backyard and the like.

"I wouldn't say I was sexy! But I guess that's fine if that's what they say. I like that in concert. That's neat."

What isn't neat is: "Like you run into a bunch of girls, which I do all the time, you'll drive outside and there'll be all these girls standing on the corner and they'll start bursting into screaming and jumping up and down and I'll just sink into my seat. That happens all the time ... Everyone knew where we lived before, because it was on the Map To The Stars Homes, and they'd come round with cameras and sleeping bags and jump the fence and sleep in the yard and come in the house - we found people everywhere. Even with 24-hour guards they find a way to slip in. One day my brother woke up and saw this girl standing over him in his bedroom. People hitch-hike to the house and say they want to sleep with us, stay with us, and it usually ends up that one of the neighbours takes them in. We don't let them stay. We don't know them."

More tales of crazy fans. One girl who tried to blow them up; another who screams at him in supermarkets. Must get a bit tough knowing who's your friend sometimes.

"It does become difficult. It's hard to tell, and sometimes I get it wrong. Just the force of feeling, or if a person's just nice without knowing who you are."

Lonely at the top? "We know lots and lots of people because we have such a big family. But [I've got] maybe two, three good friends."

Things weren't much different when he was growing up in Gary, Indiana. He remembers "a huge baseball pitch at the back of where I lived and children playing and eating popcorn and everything" and not being allowed to join in, but still reckons: "I didn't really feel left out. We got a lot in exchange for not playing baseball in the summer. My father was always very protective of us, taking care of business and everything.

"We went to school, but I guess we were even different then, because everyone in the neighbourhood knew about us. We'd win every talent show and our house was loaded with trophies. We always had money and we could buy things the other kids couldn't, like extra candy and extra bubblegum - our pockets were always loaded and we'd be passing out candy. That made us popular! But mostly we had private schooling. I only went to one public school in my life.

"I tried to go to another one here, but it didn't work, because a bunch of fans would break into the classroom, or we'd come out of school and there'd be a bunch of kids waiting to take pictures and stuff like that. We stayed at that school a week. The rest was private school with other entertainment kids or stars' kids, where you wouldn't have to be hassled."

But spending your life almost exclusively with your brothers and sisters - doesn't it get claustrophobic?

"Honestly, it doesn't, and I'm not just saying that to be polite."

Not even when they're on the road?

"No. We're so silly when we're on the road. We play games, we throw things at each other. It seems like when you're under pressure you find some kind of escapism to make up for that - because the road is a lot of tensions: work, interviews, fans grabbing you, everybody wants a piece of you, you're always busy, the phones ringing all night with fans calling you, so you put the phone under the mattress, then the fans knock at the door screaming, you can't even get out of the room without them following you. It's like you're in a goldfish bowl and they're always watching you."

How do you escape the madness?

"I go to museums and learn and study. I don't do sports - it's dangerous. There's a lot of money being counted on, and we don't want to risk anything. My brother hurt his leg in a basketball game and we had to cancel the concert, and just because of him having an hour of fun, thousands of people missed the show, and we were being sued left and right because of a game. I don't think it's worth it ... I try to be real careful."

Even about talking to the press. Another reason he hates interviews is a fear of being misquoted. Magazines he reckons, "can be so stupid sometimes that I want to choke them! I say things and they turn it all around. Once I made a quote - I care about starvation and I love children and I want to do something about the future. And I said, one day I'd love to go to India and see the starving children and really see what it feels like. And they wrote that Michael Jackson gets a kick out of seeing children starve, so you can see what kind of person he is!"

You wonder how someone so sweet and shy and childlike gets to be such a demon onstage.

"I just do it really. The sex thing is kind of spontaneous. It really creates itself."

So you don't practise being sexy in front of the mirror?

"No! Once the music plays, it creates me. The instruments move me, through me, they control me. Sometimes I'm uncontrollable and it just happens - boom, boom, boom! - once it gets inside you."

Michael has complete control over every aspect of his career. And he criticises his own efforts more than anyone else's: "I'm never satisfied with what I do. I always think I can do it a lot better."

Anyway, as we told you already he's going to be working on a film with Steven Spielberg. "I love Steven," says Michael. "I can't really tell you anything about the project. I will say Steven is my favourite director, and that he's looked long and hard for the right property."

Just heard that Francis Ford Coppola wants to do Peter Pan with him as the lead. And we at Creem haven't seen such a blatant bit of typecasting since Sly Stone made his fortune playing mindless beefcake. At 24, doesn't it get on his nerves being referred to as a "child"?

"I don't mind. I feel I'm Peter Pan as well as Methusalah, and a child. I love children so much. Thank God for children. They save me every time!

But how about a film of his own life, then? Will we ever get to see a film of Michael Jackson's magical life?

"No. I'd hate to play my own life story," he grimaces. "I haven't lived it yet! I'll let someone else do it."

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

Michael Jackson Speaks to Ebony Magazine - May 1992(Africa)

Ebony/Jet: Do you have any special feeling about this return to the continent of Africa?

Michael Jackson: For me, it's like the "dawn of civilization." It's the first place where society existed. It's seen a lot of love. I guess there's that connection because it is the root of all rhythm. Everything. It's home.

Ebony/Jet:: You visited Africa in 1974. Can you compare and contrast the two visits?

Michael Jackson: I'm more aware of things this time: the people and how they live and their government. But for me, I'm more aware of the rhythms and the music and the people. That's what I'm really noticing more than any thing. The rhythms are incredible. You can tell especially the way the children move. Even the little babies, when they hear the drums, they start to move. The rhythm, the way it affects their soul and they start to move. The same thing that Blacks have in America. . .

Ebony/Jet:: How does it feel to be a real king?

Michael Jackson: I never try to think hard about it because I don't want it to go to my head. But, it's a great honor....

Ebony/Jet:: Speaking of music and rhythm, how did you put together the gospel songs on your last album?

Michael Jackson: I wrote "Will You Be There?" at my house, "Never Land" in California.... I didn't think about it hard. That's why it's hard to take credit for the songs that I write, because I just always feel that it's done from above. I feel fortunate for being that instrument through which music flows. I'm just the source through which it comes. I can't take credit for it because it's God's work. He's just using me as the messenger....

Ebony/Jet: What was the concept for the Dangerous album?

Michael Jackson: I wanted to do an album that was like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. So that in a thousand years from now, people would still be listening to it. Something that would live forever. I would like to see children and teenagers and parents and all races all over the world, hundreds and hundreds of years from now, still pulling out songs from that album and dissecting it. I want it to live.

Ebony/Jet:: I notice on this trip that you made a special effort to visit children.

Michael Jackson: I love children, as you can see. And babies.

Ebony/Jet:: And animals.

Michael Jackson: Well, there's a certain sense that animals and children have that gives me a certain creative juice, a certain force that later on in adulthood is kind of lost because of the conditioning that happens in the world. A great poet said once. "When I see children, I see that God has not yet given up on man." An Indian poet from India said that, and his name is Tagore. The innocence of children represents to me the source of infinite creativity. That is the potential of every human being. But by the time you are an adult, you're conditioned; you're so conditioned by the things about youand it goes. Love. Children are loving, they don't gossip, they don't complain, they're just open-hearted. They're ready for you. They don't judge. They don't see things by way of color. They're very child-like. That's the problem with adults they lose that child-like quality. And that's the level of inspiration that's so needed and is so important for creating and writing songs and for a sculptor, a poet or a novelist. It's that same kind of innocence, that same level of consciousness, that you create from. And kids have it. I feel it right away from animals and children and nature. Of course. And when I'm on stage. I can't perform if I don't have that kind of ping pony with the crowd. You know the kind of cause and effect action, reaction. Because I play off of them. They're really feeding me and I'm just acting from their energy.

Ebony/Jet:: Where is all this heading?

Michael Jackson: I really believe that God chooses people to do certain things, the way Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci or Mozart or Muhammad Ali or Martin Luther King is chosen. And that is their mission to do that thing. And I think that I haven't scratched the surface yet of what my real purpose is for being here. I'm committed to my art. I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. And I believe that that is the very reason for the exis-tence of art and what I do. And I feel fortunate in being that instrument through which music flows....

Deep inside I feel that this world we live in is really a big, huge, monumental symphonic orchestra. I believe that in its primordial form all of creation is sound and that it's not just random sound, that it's music. You've heard the expression, mu-sic of the spheres? Well, that's a very literal phrase. In the Gospels, we read, "And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man be-came a living soul." That breath of life to me is the music of life and it permeates every fiber of creation.

In one of the pieces of the Dangerous album, I say: "Life songs of ages, throbbing in my blood, have danced the rhythm of the tide and flood." This is a very literal statement, because the same new miracle intervals and biological rhythms that sound out the architecture of my DNA also governs the movement of the stars. The same music governs the rhythm of the seasons, the pulse of our heartbeats, the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of ocean tides, the cycles of growth, evolution and dissolution. It's music, it's rhythm. And my goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive: the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance. It's like, my purpose, it's what I'm here for.

Ebony/Jet:: What about politics?

Michael Jackson: I never get into politics. But I think music soothes the savage beast. If you put cells under a microscope and you put music on, you'll see them move and start to dance. It affects the soul.... I hear music in everything. [Pauses] You know, that's the most I've said in eight years You know I don't give interviews. That because I know you, and I trust you. You're the only person I trust to give interviews to.

Last edited by MJ TinkerBell; 16-10-2013 at 07:05 AM.

"My real goal is to fulfill God’s purpose." - Michael Jackson

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Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

The Michael Jackson Nobody KnowsEbony Magazine Interview1984

As the kinetic and magnetic leader of The Jacksons, whose 1984 Victory Tour attracted the largest concert crowds and sold the most tickets in the history of show business, Michael Jackson is an extraordinary human being who is beyond category.

Although he has been out front and outstanding for 20 years, the 26-year-old singer/songwriter/dancer and actor was not recognized as a super-super-star until his Thriller album became the best-selling LP of all time. Since then, much has been written about him, but the man behind the superstar is still a mystery and a media enigma.

The White media’s Michael Jackson, portrayed mostly through gossip, rumors, hype, and sometimes slander, is not the Michael I have watched and reported on since he emerged from the anonymity of the steel town of Gary, Indiana in 1970. That Michael Jackson - the Michael Jackson nobody knows - is warm, sensitive, vibrant, keenly aware of the mysteries of life and the wonder and magic of children. Several months ago he told me that he was tired of the wave of lies in the White press. What he said then was reflected in the extraordinary and revealing statement he issued at a press conference through his manager, Frank Dileo:

“For some time now, I have been searching my conscience as to whether or not I should publicly react to the many falsehoods that have been spread about me. I have decided to make this statement based on the injustice of these allegations and the far-reaching trauma those who feel close to me are suffering.

“I feel very fortunate to have been blessed with recognition for my efforts. This recognition also brings with it a responsibility to one’s admirers throughout the world. Performers should always serve as role models who set an example for young people. It saddens me that many may actually believe the present flurry of false accusations.”

“To that end, and I do mean END -

“No! I’ve never taken hormones to maintain my high voice.”
“No! I’ve never had my cheekbones altered in any way.”
“No! I’ve never had cosmetic surgery on my eyes.”

“YES!! One day in the future I plan to get married and have a family.
Any statements to the contrary are simply untrue.”

“Henceforth, as new fantasies are printed, I have advised my attorneys of my willingness to institute legal action and subsequently prosecute all guilty to the fullest extent of the law.”

“As noted earlier, I love children. We all know that kids are very impressionable and therefore susceptible to such stories. I’m certain that some have already been hurt by this terrible slander. In addition to their admiration, I would like to continue to keep their respect.”

Michael Joseph Jackson, whose middle name is his father’s first, earned respect the old-fashioned way - the same way he earned the title “The World’s Greatest Entertainer”.

His Thriller album has sold over 35 million copies and is still selling.
He earns an estimated $2 from the album’s $5 wholesale price and has pocketed some $70 million from worldwide sales.

He organized and now heads corporations that handle his business affairs, including Michael Jackson, Inc., which handles profits from his album and video royalties; Experiments In Sound, which deals with new techniques in recording; and Optimum Productions, which produces his music videos and video versions of records of other artists.

The top winner of record and video awards, he received an unprecedented eight American Music Awards, a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards, and the MTV Video Award.

Born the fifth of six talented sons of Joseph and Katherine Jackson in Gary, Indiana, 26 years ago (August 29, 195, he is a positive thinker and a creative artist who is motivated by a deep concern for all of humankind and an unyielding love for his profession. His love for fans who have become admirers is, perhaps, without parallel.

Love is what made Michael endure one of the most pressure-filled concert tours of his career. Even though The Jacksons Victory Tour is expected to gross over $70 million, he didn’t perform for the love of money. He said he did it for the love of family, fans, and favorite charities. Although it was projected that his parents, who organized the tour with boxing impresario Don King, could each earn $5 million and each brother pocket about $7.5 million, Michael announced that his share of the concert earnings would go to three worthy causes. They are the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), Camp Good Times for terminally ill children, and the T.J. Martell Foundation for Leukemia and Cancer research.

He is also giving earnings from a special album called Let’s Beat It, to charity. He is doing it, he says, because children inspired him to write the hit single, Beat It, “Children are my biggest inspiration in anything I do,” Michael told this writer. “I adore children - crazy about them. I wanted to write a song, the type of rock song that I would buy….I wanted the kids to really enjoy it, the school kids, as well as the college kids,” said the sensitive songwriter whose two favorite songs are Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Peter and the Wolf.

He spoke of the song, Be Not Always, which he wrote with a little help from his brother, Marlon. In the sensitive, sentimental song recorded in The Jacksons’ Victory album, Michael makes a tearful plea to change a world in which “mothers cry, babies die helplessly in arms…” He observed that all of his brothers feel the same way about children, “not just me.”

Recalling that the late superstar Josephine Baker, an entertainer he admired, had a United Nations of children that she had adopted, Michael smiled broadly and said with assurance:

“I’m going to have children of my own, but I’m going to adopt as many races as I can. That is what I’m going to do. I love children. Like Emmanuel Lewis (tiny, 12-year-old star of TV’s Webster series), he’s a real inspiration.”

Nothing, however, inspires the proud performer more than his family and fans. He talked about this shortly after newspapers circulated reports that he had been spoiled by the success of his Thriller LP and the proliferation of music awards, which included EBONY’s American Black Achievement Award.

“Because I have achieved a lot of broken records with Off The Wall [album] and I’ve been the lead singer for the longest and now with Thriller, which is the all-time best and everything, I’m not planning on leaving,” he said of a rumor that he plans to leave the Jacksons after the tour. “They are my brothers [Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon, and Randy] and I love them all dearly and I think the media begin to look for something to sell papers and they make up things and they twist them.”

Michael said at the beginning of the tour, “I’m doing it for the joy of touring and the family as a whole, and for the kids out there who bought the records. I’m a stage addict. I have to be on the stage.”

Once during an interview at his California home, where he still resides with his parents and sister, LaToya, Michael said, “I would like you to put this in quotations: ‘My main love for what I do is the admirers. I love the fans. Like when I’m doing a show and I see the fans out there dancing and screaming, excited, and we’re bringing that joy to them, that’s what I love most. And it’s just the greatest feeling in the world. You’re up there and you’re giving them that energy and that love and they’re just throwing it right back at you. And it’s great. And that’s my main love, the stage and making those admirers happy.’”

As the interview continues, Michael talks of many subjects that reveal things about him that have been overlooked in the media’s rush for rumors. Here are some of his views:

EBONY:You have to cope with a lot of stress and pressure in the entertainment business. People make all kinds of requests of you and propositions come from all directions. How do you cope with these stresses and pressures?

MICHAEL:I cope with it in a way and I’m not calling myself Jesus because I would never even look at myself on the same level, but I’m comparing it to Jesus because what God gave to him was for a reason and he preached and people came about him and he didn’t get angry and push them aside and say leave me alone, I ain’t got time.

EBONY:But you must encounter some fans who pressure you and provoke you.

MICHAEL: I do get angry at times because there are those who will come up to you with the worst attitude and will say to you, ‘Sit down, sign my baby’s paper.’ They’ll throw it at you. I’ll say, ‘Do you have a pen?’ ‘You don’t have a pen? Well, go get one.’ That’s what they’ll actually tell me….I’m amazed by some of the people. They think they own you. And they’ll say to you, ‘Listen, I made you what you are.’ I say, ‘Wait a minute. You didn’t just buy it [album] to help me. You bought it because you like it and that’s true.’

EBONY: You are looked upon as a role model. You once appeared at the Chicago Public Library to encourage young people and adults to read, and a book marker souvenir was distributed with a quotation from you. Do you still enjoy reading?

MICHAEL:I love to read. I wish I could advise more people to read. There’s a whole other world in books. If you can’t afford to travel, you travel mentally through reading. You can see anything and go any place you want to in reading.

EBONY:Have you had a chance to do any reading related to the Black experience or in terms of Black history?

MICHAEL:Oh, yes! I’m really thankful for what Mr. [John H.] Johnson has done in bringing books through Johnson Publications….I think it’s good to show we are contributing to the world in many ways. That’s what a lot of people think - that we haven’t.

EBONY: How do you keep up with what Black people today are doing, saying, and thinking? And who are some of the people, other than your family and close associates, who influence your thinking?

MICHAEL: I love the way [John H.] Johnson runs his organization. Seems like everybody’s really nice. I’m sure there are quarrels and things, but everybody’s very nice….and have such an influence on the young. People rule their lives by JET and EBONY. I mean, they get their information from those two magazines and the young kids, too. I’ll say, where did you read it? I read it in JET. And they keep up with what’s happening in JET and EBONY. And I think that’s wonderful…God, I admire people like Johnson and [Walt] Disney. I think they’re phenomenal.

EBONY: You talk of the influence of books and people in your life. What part does travel play in shaping your attitudes and outlook on life?

MICHAEL:I think before anybody gets married, they should really travel the world if they can. It’s the most incredible education I’ve ever had. I think it’s phenomenal. I mean just to see the different cultures of people, the different faces, to talk to people and just to learn and see….When I traveled I was amazed. When we first went to Switzerland, I almost started crying. I really did.

EBONY: What touched you about that trip to bring about that emotional response?

MICHAEL: The beauty. It’s like, oh, God, it’s crying out in the sky. It’s an incredible country and it inspires me to see these things - the mountains. The pictures don’t do justice to Switzerland. Then there’s the Netherlands and France. Gosh, they’re incredible, too!

EBONY: Obviously, when you travel, you are more than a tourist, you are an observer.

MICHAEL:Well, a lot of people just stay in the cities when they travel. They should get out and see the real country. Wherever you go, man-made things are man-made, but you gotta get out and see God’s beauty.

EBONY:In your travels, what were some of the countries that impressed you most?

MICHAEL:I’m gonna raise my hand on this one. I’ll say this. I always thought that the Blacks, as far as artistry, were a talented race of people. But when I went to Africa, I was even more convinced. They did some incredible things over there. [West African countries, including Senegal]. We went to one place out in the flatlands where all these Africans sell their crafts and everything. I went to this one hut where this guy made incredible carvings….He took a piece of wood and a hatchet-like thing and started chopping and I just sat there amazed. He carved a big face…dipped it in some water…dried it off and he gave it to me and I paid for it.

EBONY: You seem impressed by African art but what about African music and dance?

MICHAEL:When we came off the plane in [Dakar, Senegal] Africa, we were greeted by a long line of African dancers. Their drums and sounds filled the air with rhythm. I was going crazy, I was screaming. I said, ‘All right!’ They got the beat and they got the rhythm….I just was so glad about the whole thing. This is it, I said. This is where I come from. The origin….

EBONY:You were obviously impressed by your musical roots, so where do you think the Africans derived their musical influence?

MICHAEL:Music started with nature. Music is nature. Birds make music. Oceans make music. Wind makes music. Any natural sound is music. And that’s where it started….You see, we’re just making a replica of nature, which is the sounds we hear outside.

EBONY:Did your travels have any influence on the way you think about races of people?

MICHAEL: The main thing that I hate most is ignorance, like the prejudice problems of America. I know it is worse in some other countries. But I wish I could borrow, like from Venezuela or Trinidad, the real love of color-blind people and bring it to America….

EBONY:You are making some observations with intense feelings. Please continue.

MICHAEL:I’m prejudiced against ignorance. That’s what I’m mainly prejudiced against. It’s only ignorance and it’s taught because it’s not genetic at all. The little children in those [countries] aren’t prejudiced. I would like for you to put this in quotes, too. I’m really not a prejudiced person at all. I believe that people should think about God more and creation….Look at the many wonders inside the human body - the different colors of organs, colors of blood - and all these different colors do a different thing in the human body. It’s the most incredible system in the world; it makes an incredible building, the human being. And if this can happen with the human body, why can’t we do it as people? And that’s how I feel. And that’s why I wish the world could do more. That’s the only thing I hate. I really do.

EBONY: What you have just said is not only compassionate but compelling. How do you communicate such feelings since you don’t make public appearances to express your views in public forums?

MICHAEL:I try to write, put it in song. Put it in dance. Put it in my art to teach the world. If politicians can’t do it, I want to do it. We have to do it. Artists, put it in paintings. Poets, put it in poems, novels. That’s what we have to do. And I think it’s so important to save the world.

EBONY:Stevie Wonder apparently shares similar feelings, judging by some of his musical messages.

MICHAEL: That’s why I love Stevie Wonder’s biggest-selling album called Songs in the Key of Life. He has a song on that album called Black Man….I just jumped up screaming when I heard that record because he’s showing the world what the Black man has done and what other races have done, and he balanced it beautifully by putting other races in there, what they have done. Then he brings out what the Black Man has done. Instead of naming it another thing, he named it Black Man. That’s what I loved about it….And that’s the best way to bring about the truth, through song. And that’s what I love about it.

EBONY:You don’t seem to have any objections to messages in music as long as the messages are positive. Your music, unlike some artists, stays clear of messages glorifying drugs. But drugs are a reality. How do you view it?

MICHAEL:In the field I’m in, there is a lot of that and it gets offered to me all the time. People even go as far as to just…stick it in your pocket and walk off. Now, if it was a good thing, they wouldn’t do that….I mean, would somebody drop something beautiful in my pocket and just walk off? But I don’t want to have anything to do with any of that. I mean, as corny as it sounds, but this is how I really believe: Natural highs are the greatest highs in the world….Who wants to take something and just sit around for the rest of the day after you take it [drugs], and don’t know who you are, what you’re doing, where you are? Take in something that’s gonna inspire you to do greater things in the world.

EBONY:Do you put God or religion in that process of a natural high?

MICHAEL: Oh, yes, God, really. I believe in the Bible and I try to follow the Bible. I know I’m an imperfect person….I’m not making myself an angel because I’m not an angel and I’m not a devil either. I try to be the best I can and I try to do what I think is right. It’s that simple. And I do believe in God.

EBONY: Do prayers or praying play a role in your life?

MICHAEL: I pray every night. I don’t just pray at night. I pray at different times during the day. When I see something beautiful, whenever I see beautiful scenery - like when I’m flying or something -- I say, oh, God, that’s beautiful. And I always say little prayers like that all through the day. I love beauty.

EBONY: Speaking of beauty, you have been associated in a public way with many beautiful people, including your beautiful sisters, LaToya, Rebbie, and Janet, but also Diana Ross, Tatum O’Neal, and Brooke *******. You have been linked romantically with the latter two. Someone said you and Tatum had a lot in common: the parents of both of you are protective - she’s a daddy’s [Ryan O’Neal] girl and you’re a momma’s [Katherine Jackson] boy.

MICHAEL: I want all those people who read JET and EBONY to just know that we’re mainly good friends. That’s the main thing. I think for guys, girls make the best friends. And for girls, guys make the best friends.

EBONY: What is your relationship with Brooke? When did you meet and has that relationship developed?

MICHAEL:We met at the Academy Awards. She asked me to dance because I was not going to ask her. You know, I’m really shy and embarrassed. So she says, ‘I got to dance with you tonight.’ I said, great. So we got together on the dance floor and danced. They were playing that old-fashioned Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey music, which wasn’t much of a groove. First, you’ve got all these bald-headed old people on the floor slow dancing, the Lawrence Welk sound. We really couldn’t get into it so we got to talking and got to know each other. We switched numbers and had phone conversations back and forth and we became real good friends.

EBONY: Does this mean that Brooke has replaced Tatum as a special friend?

MICHAEL:Tatum calls me all the time and I hope she reads this interview because I’m sorry I couldn’t get all of her calls. But she’s still a wonderful friend of mine.

EBONY: Both Tatum and Brooke are fine actresses. You did all right in The Wiz. What’s in the future for you now in films?

MICHAEL:I’m very excited about a lot of things that I want to do and that I’m going to do in films and things. I really can’t wait….Since The Wiz, incredible offers have come to me, things that are still in the making.

EBONY:You once said that you will be careful about choosing your next role so that you won’t be typecast anymore. You said that since The Wiz, some people still call you Scarecrow because of that character role you played.

MICHAEL: Whatever role you play, people link it with your personality. But it’s acting. You’re portraying another person….I wish it wasn’t called acting because I don’t really like actors. I mean, the word acting.

EBONY:Please elaborate.

MICHAEL: I don’t think acting should be acting. Acting, if you’re acting, you’re imitating realism. You should create realism. It should be called believing. You see, I always was against it when I thought about acting. I don’t want to see an actor. I want so see a believer. I don’t want to see anybody that’s gonna imitate the truths. It’s not real then. I want to see a person that’s gonna believe the truth….That’s when you move an audience.

EBONY:What kind of questions do you wish you would be asked but nobody ever asks you?

MICHAEL:That’s a good question. Probably about children or writing, or what I just talked about….You don’t make a better world of minds and things when people put the wrong things in their lyrics and give the wrong views on stage and everything. It’s just so important and I think this can lead so many people astray, because an artist can be built up so big in his career that this could change the whole world by what he does and thinks. They’ll listen to him before the President or any of these big politicians. You have to be careful. They could change these peoples’ way of life by what they say and do. That’s why it’s important to give off love vibes and that’s why I love what I do….When Marvin Gaye put out the album, What’s Going On, so many Blacks as well as Whites - but mainly Blacks-were educated. ‘Wake up. What’s going on? Wake up.’ I mean the ones that don’t watch the news, don’t read the papers to really dig in the depths of humanism. What’s going on? Wake up.

EBONY:There have been some campaigns against so-called dirty lyrics songs by some popular musical groups. Do you have any views about such groups and their lyrics?

MICHAEL:Sometimes they go too far. They don’t leave anything for the imagination. If I just walked out on stage naked, there’s no imagination. I’m not letting them imagine what I look like without the clothes. But you see, they overdo it….We got to leave them something to imagine. People go too far at times. I think it’s important to set the right example because there are so many kids who look up to us.

As the most productive year of his entertainment career comes to a close and his talents helped him gross about $100 million, Michael is not content to rest on his laurels or his loot. He faces a future guided by two observations, both of which he made:

“I’m interested in making a path instead of following a trail and that’s what I want to do in life - in everything I do,” Michael told this writer in an interview on July 13, 1979.

He made the other observation in his role as Scarecrow in The Wiz, a movie in which he co-starred with one of his dearest friends - Diana Ross.

In a scene near the end of the film, Michael spoke these words through his Scarecrow character:
“Success, fame, fortune - they are all illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship that two can share.”

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

Originally Posted by MJ TinkerBell

The Michael Jackson Nobody KnowsEbony Magazine Interview1984

EBONY: You are looked upon as a role model. You once appeared at the Chicago Public Library to encourage young people and adults to read, and a book marker souvenir was distributed with a quotation from you. Do you still enjoy reading?

MICHAEL:I love to read. I wish I could advise more people to read. There’s a whole other world in books. If you can’t afford to travel, you travel mentally through reading. You can see anything and go any place you want to in reading.

Indeed, I thought I was a 'bookworm' 'till I spend my afternoons working in a book store... It's amazing what a HUGE world there is in BOOKS... I wasn't really 'interested' in Dutch Literature but since I have to know what we sell... I've been intrigued by this whole NEW world full of stories and experience... I DO wish People would read more, yeah... Knowledge is POWER, right :cheeky:

EBONY:Did your travels have any influence on the way you think about races of people?

MICHAEL: The main thing that I hate most is ignorance, like the prejudice problems of America. I know it is worse in some other countries. But I wish I could borrow, like from Venezuela or Trinidad, the real love of color-blind people and bring it to America….

EBONY:You are making some observations with intense feelings. Please continue.

MICHAEL:I’m prejudiced against ignorance. That’s what I’m mainly prejudiced against. It’s only ignorance and it’s taught because it’s not genetic at all. The little children in those [countries] aren’t prejudiced. I would like for you to put this in quotes, too. I’m really not a prejudiced person at all. I believe that people should think about God more and creation….Look at the many wonders inside the human body - the different colors of organs, colors of blood - and all these different colors do a different thing in the human body. It’s the most incredible system in the world; it makes an incredible building, the human being. And if this can happen with the human body, why can’t we do it as people? And that’s how I feel. And that’s why I wish the world could do more. That’s the only thing I hate. I really do.

EBONY: What you have just said is not only compassionate but compelling. How do you communicate such feelings since you don’t make public appearances to express your views in public forums?

MICHAEL:I try to write, put it in song. Put it in dance. Put it in my art to teach the world. If politicians can’t do it, I want to do it. We have to do it. Artists, put it in paintings. Poets, put it in poems, novels. That’s what we have to do. And I think it’s so important to save the world.

EBONY:Stevie Wonder apparently shares similar feelings, judging by some of his musical messages.

MICHAEL: That’s why I love Stevie Wonder’s biggest-selling album called Songs in the Key of Life. He has a song on that album called Black Man….I just jumped up screaming when I heard that record because he’s showing the world what the Black man has done and what other races have done, and he balanced it beautifully by putting other races in there, what they have done. Then he brings out what the Black Man has done. Instead of naming it another thing, he named it Black Man. That’s what I loved about it….And that’s the best way to bring about the truth, through song. And that’s what I love about it.

EBONY:You don’t seem to have any objections to messages in music as long as the messages are positive. Your music, unlike some artists, stays clear of messages glorifying drugs. But drugs are a reality. How do you view it?

MICHAEL:In the field I’m in, there is a lot of that and it gets offered to me all the time. People even go as far as to just…stick it in your pocket and walk off. Now, if it was a good thing, they wouldn’t do that….I mean, would somebody drop something beautiful in my pocket and just walk off? But I don’t want to have anything to do with any of that. I mean, as corny as it sounds, but this is how I really believe: Natural highs are the greatest highs in the world….Who wants to take something and just sit around for the rest of the day after you take it [drugs], and don’t know who you are, what you’re doing, where you are? Take in something that’s gonna inspire you to do greater things in the world.

EBONY:Do you put God or religion in that process of a natural high?

MICHAEL: Oh, yes, God, really. I believe in the Bible and I try to follow the Bible. I know I’m an imperfect person….I’m not making myself an angel because I’m not an angel and I’m not a devil either. I try to be the best I can and I try to do what I think is right. It’s that simple. And I do believe in God.

EBONY: Do prayers or praying play a role in your life?

MICHAEL: I pray every night. I don’t just pray at night. I pray at different times during the day. When I see something beautiful, whenever I see beautiful scenery - like when I’m flying or something -- I say, oh, God, that’s beautiful. And I always say little prayers like that all through the day. I love beauty.

See, another reason WHY I Michael... He's such a wise man

EBONY:You once said that you will be careful about choosing your next role so that you won’t be typecast anymore. You said that since The Wiz, some people still call you Scarecrow because of that character role you played.

MICHAEL: Whatever role you play, people link it with your personality. But it’s acting. You’re portraying another person….I wish it wasn’t called acting because I don’t really like actors. I mean, the word acting.

EBONY:Please elaborate.

MICHAEL: I don’t think acting should be acting. Acting, if you’re acting, you’re imitating realism. You should create realism. It should be called believing. You see, I always was against it when I thought about acting. I don’t want to see an actor. I want so see a believer. I don’t want to see anybody that’s gonna imitate the truths. It’s not real then. I want to see a person that’s gonna believe the truth….That’s when you move an audience.

EBONY:What kind of questions do you wish you would be asked but nobody ever asks you?

MICHAEL:That’s a good question. Probably about children or writing, or what I just talked about….You don’t make a better world of minds and things when people put the wrong things in their lyrics and give the wrong views on stage and everything. It’s just so important and I think this can lead so many people astray, because an artist can be built up so big in his career that this could change the whole world by what he does and thinks. They’ll listen to him before the President or any of these big politicians. You have to be careful. They could change these peoples’ way of life by what they say and do. That’s why it’s important to give off love vibes and that’s why I love what I do….When Marvin Gaye put out the album, What’s Going On, so many Blacks as well as Whites - but mainly Blacks-were educated. ‘Wake up. What’s going on? Wake up.’ I mean the ones that don’t watch the news, don’t read the papers to really dig in the depths of humanism. What’s going on? Wake up.

EBONY:There have been some campaigns against so-called dirty lyrics songs by some popular musical groups. Do you have any views about such groups and their lyrics?

MICHAEL:Sometimes they go too far. They don’t leave anything for the imagination. If I just walked out on stage naked, there’s no imagination. I’m not letting them imagine what I look like without the clothes. But you see, they overdo it….We got to leave them something to imagine. People go too far at times. I think it’s important to set the right example because there are so many kids who look up to us.

Yep, acting is NOT the real word... You should indeed 'believe' in that character and that's how you make that character come alive :agree:
I also love the last "quote"... Yep, Michael 'Imagination' is important :lol:

MJJC Resident Writerwww.mjjcommunity.com

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Daryll748 For This Useful Post:

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

Simulchat Interview , with Michael Jackson - August 17, 1995

On the evening of August 17th, Michael Jackson joined together with the Internet, Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy and his fans from around the world in a simulchat. MTV televised the simulchat as well. The following is a transcript of that historical event. Over 16,000 people attened the chat on America Online alone, not to mention the others on Prodigy, Compuserve, and the Internet.

The event took place in the boardroom of The Museum Of Television & Radio in midtown Manhattan. Michael was seated at the long boardroom table surrounded by representatives from all of the online services - who were seated in front of their laptops dialed-in to their respective services. Questions were selected on a 'round-robin' basis from each of the services, Michael woud answer the questions, and a (high-speed!) typist would enter his answers onto the service.
Michael thoroughly enjoyed the event - as did all of the participants in the room!

Here is a transcript of the event - which was compiled by Sony from all of the services' transcripts to provide as accurate a document as possible (Michael sometimes talks quite fast - which made typing a challenge!). Enjoy!

Compuserve Question from ORLANDO, FL: Janice Maki Brandon:
I have been a long time fan and I just want to know how, after all the bad press, you can keep going and doing the best job that any rock star can do? Is it the fact you have such a wonderful wife supporting you, or are there other reasons you stay so damn great?

Michael Jackson:
Despite of what the press says about celebrities and myself in general, I move ahead. I don't pay attention to that tabloid junk - it's garbage. I have my dreams I am a visionary and I am very resilient. I feel as if I have a suit of armor around me, like a rhinoceros skin. I am here to do what I am supposed to do. Thank you for asking the first question.

Compuserve Question from MANCHESTER, NH: Brett Mallard:
If you could be any super hero... like Batman, Superman, et al.. whom would you choose to be and why?

Michael Jackson:
I like Batman a lot... If I could choose one, it would be Morph, from the X-Men. He can become anything ... He constantly transforms himself. I think he can even teleport, which is interesting and exciting to me. He's not as popular as the others, but that makes him exciting.

Prodigy Question from Darkan:
Are you ever going to tour America?

Michael Jackson:
I'm not exactly sure, we kind of play it by ear, kind of spontaneous. It would be nice, but I'm not sure.

Internet Question from Brian:
Is your new album doing as well as expected? Go MJ!!

Michael Jackson:
Yes, I am overly excited about how well the album is doing. It is the fastest selling album in my career. Despite what the press is saying. Unprecedented 7 million worldwide sold in the first week!

Prodigy Question from Spin Cycle:
Michael, thanks for coming. What is your favorite song on your newest CD?

Michael Jackson:
I think I find it more fun to appreciate what family really means. the fact that even though there were 10 of us Jacksons and we were always doing things at different times and I am really learning the real meaning of love. Giving 100% of yourself all the time. Putting up with one another. So far it has been pretty joyous.

Compuserve Question from KANSAS CITY, MO: Jim Shea:
Do you ever wish you could walk into a public place and not be mobbed by your fans?

Michael Jackson:
I have every disguise you can think of... that is why I wish I could be Morph so I could change places and just enjoy life. I would love to do that.

Prodigy Question from Ally W:
Hi Michael. You have an amazing voice. Whose music has helped influence your music most?

Michael Jackson:
Thank you for the compliment. That is very nice. To be honest, my first love and appreciation for music was classical, in kindergarten. I used to listen to Tchaikovsky every day. The great writing of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and many others. I love the showtunes.

Prodigy Question from Rros:
Where is the most favorite place in the world that you have traveled to and where would you most like to travel to?

Michael Jackson:
My most favorite place that I've traveled to probably would have to be between South America and Africa. Because I love the people, and I love the culture. The plight of the children is very interesting and I would love to continue to travel...to see more things and to help more people.

Compuserve Question from ENCINITAS, CA: Gary M. Richards:
MICHAEL WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG THAT YOU HAVE RECORDED? AND DO YOU STILL HAVE THE PET MONKEY NAMED BUBBLES, WHO WAS SHOWN IN YOUR GENESIS VIDEO GAME, MOONWALKER?

Michael Jackson:
If I had to pick one song... that's very difficult. Probably Ben, Got to Be There, Heal The World, one of the oldies. Bubbles is still alive and still my pet chimp. He's bigger, likes to eat a lot...lots of pizza, ice cream...He loves snacks! [Michael laughs]

Prodigy Question from SiBiS:
In Oprah's interview, you said that you wanted to raise a family one day..Do you plan to do so??

Michael Jackson:
Yes, that's my dream for a long time. My own children, I want to adopt them. Not only my own, but children all over the world. I think we should be less territorial about it.

Compuserve Question from LOMBARD, IL: Kurt A. Lentsch
How did you like working with your sister Janet on the "Scream" Video and also working with your beautiful bride, Lisa Marie. PS Best of luck to you two, don't listen to all the BS going around!

Michael Jackson:
That is a great question! The press creates all of these negative stories so that people will buy their magazines or read their columns and you must not believe everything you read or see on television. Most of it is false and it is tabloid garbage and I want everyone to be aware of what the tabloid media is like. I have had so much fun working with my sister and working on the set everyday. I haven't seen her in quite some time and she is busy and I am as well and it is like a reunion. Because of all the family members I am closest to Janet and we became very emotional on the set. We gave each other presents but every day on the set sometimes she would come to me sad because of some crazy story that some tabloid said. I told her that she would have to become resilient because it is there and I want the public to know. And Yes I had fun with Lisa Marie on the set. She wanted to perform in the video. I had a lot of fun with Lisa Marie on the set. But when the director said "Action," she became very shy. I was giving her a little bit of a hard time, too!

Prodigy Question from Gemseeker:
When did you learn to Moonwalk? I think it's so cool.

Michael Jackson:
Thank you sooo much. I've always loved illusion dancing, where you can create an illusion with the body. There's a new step working on called Skywalk. I've been working on it.

Prodigy Question from blondie101:
What inspired you to write the song "Beat It"?

Michael Jackson:
Quincy Jones, for the album THRILLER, asked me to write a song with a rock edge to it. I said yes, I can do that. So the very same day, I went to the recording studio, and I literally just started to sing that song. It literally came that fast. Every song is different. The gestation process for BEAT IT was so fast, it was amazing. I thought about what I'd do in that situation... A confrontation with a gang... I wouldn't do what these people would do. The way I was raised I would turn the other cheek without creating a war or being a coward either.

Compuserve Question from VANCOUVER, WA: Brandon:
I come from a large family. Is it hard for you to see the animosity between your sister LaToya and yourself. You seem to be above all the petty gossip that others love to spread. I just want to give you two thumbs up on your maturity.

Michael Jackson:
Gee - thank you very much! I love you. Thank you.

Prodigy Question from Curveball:
Will there be a next album?

Michael Jackson:
I am not sure. This might be my last album I ever do. I will always create music but am not sure if I'll create another album.

Prodigy Question from Midway Gal:
How did you get into music?

Michael Jackson:
I don't think I can answer that without sounding philosophical. We never had music or dance lessons in our house, ever. We were a family that sang all the time. We watched television. We would entertain ourselves... We would take all the furniture out of the living room and dance. I think you're pretty much born with a gift and you are compelled to create. That is what I have always felt. I remember making up songs when I was really little. I remember when I was little there was rain outside and we would make up songs. Janet and I would have a songwriting game while we washed the dishes...while we were cleaning. I think most kids don't do that these days. It was our destiny.

AOL Question from EvenBeevu:
Do you come up with the ideas for all of your videos?

Michael Jackson:
A lot of them I do come up with. A lot of the concepts do originate with me. After singing Thriller I knew that I wanted to do a short film. Asimple guy goes out on a date and confesses to her that he's different. I wanted totransform into different things. It was fun. I had so much fun making that. Beat It is another concept that I came up with. Confrontation -two gangs - West Side Story. I wanted real gang members. I wanted to see real truisms...in the walk, in the character in the clothes. and I thinkit came across.

Prodigy Question from Pelon:
What has been your proudest musical achievement?

Michael Jackson:
One of them it is really a difficult question to answer because I am not a women but writing a song is like conceiving a child... I love all the songs . We are the World is one of the most favorite things that I've done. I am proud of that... it has reached a lot of people, it has touched a lot of people. My Secretary called when I was in the car and said pull over. And it was like a prayer when all of the radio stations played it. I had tears.

Compuserve Question from MELBOURNE, FL: Firefly
Michael, I was wondering if/when we will see more of the old-style video's and mini-movies like "Thriller" and "Moonwalker?"

Michael Jackson:
I love that. That's what I want to get back to doing. Well those types of short films are my favorite because it is not just a video in the sense of videos and images and graphics...it's a short story. But to do those takes us up to 4, 5, 6, 7 months sometimes and that has become a problem. We are going back to that. That is my dream. I'd like to make this announcement: My nephews are in here and want to sit in and listen! [nephews are entering the room]

Compuserve Question from SEATTLE, WA: Natalie Ringland:
You seem to be interested in many cultures. Have you ever studied the North? I live in an Inupiat Eskimo village at the top of Alaska. Life is different here. If you ever visit, the land and people here might inspire you. Do you travel for inspiration? -- Natalie

Michael Jackson:
Yes I do travel for inspiration and I would love to come to Alaska someday. I have flown over Alaska and I do love to travel. Maybe with your extended invitation I might be able to come!

Prodigy Question from Frogbelly:
In your song "Childhood" you sing about how you've never really known the joys of youth. What is the one thing you missed the most?

Michael Jackson:
Probably the simple little things that kids do like having a friend over or going to the park or even trick-or-treat or Christmas or birthday and when we were little we didn't have any of those things. We had to hear about them. Some of the kids who take them for granted. I haven't celebrated my birthday yet. Maybe someday I will.

Prodigy Question from Diva:
Michael, I love HIStory and think it's the best yet. When are you going to release the videos as a complete set?

Michael Jackson:
Thank you for the compliment. I worked very hard. This Christmas I think we are going to have a complete up-to-date of the shorts on one volume.

AOL Question from Applehead:
It's one of Apple head's friends, guess which one...hint Family Matters...what is your favorite song on HIStory? Tell Lisa Marie and Janet I said hi!

Michael Jackson:
I know exactly who that is! [laughter in the room] My favorite song is probably "Childhood" "Earth Song". But nice to hear from you Brighton, hope I get to see you soon. Tell all my other relatives I said hello.

Prodigy Question from Mr Potter:
Do you ever wish you could play small rooms with intimate audiences instead of mega-productions?

Michael Jackson:
Yes. I think that is the mark of a true performer, to be able to reach any audience around the world, any size. If you can directly relate to a small group, magic starts to happen. I started out playing those kinds of concerts. This Christmas, I'm doing an HBO special (Dec 10), and it is intimate. It's close-up. It will allow me to do a lot of things I've never done before.

Compuserve Question from EXTERNAL NETWORK: Sam Clarke:
Story in UK press this morning claims quickie divorce on the cards? Is it true?

Michael Jackson:
Never believe the tabloid garbage. Don't waste your time, don't waste your money. No, it's not true. If you hear it from my lips, then you can believe it. But no, it's not true.

Internet Question From MJJ:
What is your process from going from creating a rhythm on your human voice-box to the album version, such as in songs 'Who Is It' and 'Tabloid Junkie'?

Michael Jackson:
The process is creating a vocal rhythm to a click track - which is a sound, a timed beat. And you're doing these mouth sounds to that beat. These sounds can be looped according to how you sample it in the computer again and again. This is your foundation for the entire track - everything plays off this. It's the rhythm, like the beatbox rhythm. Every song I've written since I was very little I've done that way. I still do it that way.

AOL Question from Smufetty:
I love you and have enjoyed your music since icould hear and see..just one question: how can you keep going when the media makes everything so hard?

Michael Jackson:
Thank you for your compliment, I appreciate it.I believe in my work, like I said, I have great confidence in my dreams. When I have a great idea I have an iron will, Even though the media creates such negative stories they do it just to sell more papers. If you look throughout history, and I'm not trying to put my name with the names of the past it's been pretty much the same. Ghandi, Christ and I'm not saying I'm Christ, I don't want to hear the press saying that. Some of the worst attentions had to do with ignorance on the part of the people because of the press. If it happened to them, it can happen to me.

AOL Question from DanielStein:
If you could meet someone dead or alive and talk with them for an hour who would it be and why. P.S. Rock on with your bad self!

Michael Jackson:
It would probably be Michelangelo because I think he is a phenomenal artist and I love art I think I understand what he was trying to say and do even though he got criticized. He was a true artist to the point of true artistry. I would love to just sit down and have a talk.

Compuserve Question from BOUNDBROOK, NJ: AL & MEG
WHAT WAS IT THAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME INVOLVED IN HELPING AS MANY CHILDREN AS YOU DO? I THINK WHAT YOU DO FOR CHILDREN IS JUST WONDERFUL. YOU ARE WHAT THESE CHILDREN NEED TO KEEP THEM GOING WHEN TIMES ARE SO TOUGH.

Michael Jackson:
I truly care about children, and about the future for our children. I'm a little frightened about what the future is going to bring. I truly, truly love them and care about them. I will always help them. When I go on tour, I visit hospitals, terminally ill children. At my ranch at Neverland, we have many terminally ill children as our guests. We do this every few weeks. You do it because you truly love them and you care.

Internet Question From MJJ:
It is rumored (I know you hate that word) that you are doing another book... Do you plan another book, if so, what will it contain?

Michael Jackson:
I wrote a book called DANCING THE DREAM. It was more autobiographical than Moonwalker, which I did with Mrs. Onassis. It wasn't full of gossip and scandal and all the trash that people write so I don't think people paid much attention to it, but it came from my heart. It was essays, thoughts, things that I've thought about while on tour. I'm not planning to write another book anytime soon. If you want to know how I to feel, you can check out HIStory. It's a musical book.

Compuserve Question from COMPUSERVE REROUTED: Jamie Ballengee:
Mr. Jackson, What advice would you give someone who is in a similar position with the bad things from the press? My little sister Andrea Ballengee lost her Miss VA crown. :-(

Michael Jackson:
You don't pay attention to it. You become strong, you move ahead. The best advice I can give is to believe in yourself, know there's a tomorrow, walk tall...don't pay attention to the garbage...it's complete ignorance.

Internet Question From MsMittens:
Oh... before I forget... someone from the internet who couldn't access this site asked me to ask you how you are doing and why you are doing the simulchat tonight?

Michael Jackson:
I'm fine, doing all right. [laughs] I'm doing this simulchat because I love my fans, and I want to talk with you! I think this is incredible technology, just amazing, and I think we're pioneering here! Can I say hello to a couple of my friends? Hello, Lisa Marie...Hello, Paul McCartney...Hello, Mrs. Disney... Hello to my friends in Gary, Indiana...I can't think of a good joke to say... I want to say I love all of you, all of my fans around the world I love you dearly and don't listen to all the garbage that you hear.

AOL Question from VanishR29:
How do you feel about technology like the internet and it's effect on society?

Michael Jackson:
I think it is wonderful. It is a wonderful way to correspond it's growing and this is the tip of the iceberg. In the next year we will see some amazing growths in technology and I hope that I'm around to see it. I pray that we continue to serve the world in a positive way not a negative way and not hurt anyone because it is wonderful.

Internet Question From MJJ:
How involved are you with the other groups on the MJJ label?

Michael Jackson:
I'm very much involved, not to the point of always being there, but listening to tapes, collaborating on the telephone, picking artists recommending ideas. The new 3T album which I just heard I think is going to be a big success. I do believe that. I want to say hi to Bill Bellamy in LA - he's a great guy.
Thank you! Good night everybody. Talk to you soon. Bye!

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

The Michael Jackson Interview with USA Today December 2001

Seated in an upholstered chair in the softly lighted suite, Michael Jackson appears relaxed and poised, if a tad weary. He is generous in praising peers. He's flattered by copycats and loves Alien Ant Farm's cover of Smooth Criminal, including the video send up of Michael's quirks. His eyes light up at talk of upcoming movie projects, especially plans to co-direct a film with director/actor Bryan Michael Stoller in May. He laughs about his earthquake phobia, turns glum when reflecting on a domineering father and gives weight to theories of his eternal boyhood in enthusiastic chatter about toys and theme parks.

Michael radiates unshakable self-confidence about his musical skills and flashes irritation only when pressed about the press. A rare interview subject, he agreed to this encounter in hopes of emphasizing a message that's frequently obscured by gossip.

"All I'm saying is heal the world, save our children," he says.

It's a pet peeve that gets a rise out of the usually soft-spoken star.

"The guy who hits the most home runs is always the target," he states. "It's human nature."

Flanked by chaperones, Michael Jackson faces interrogation with genial resignation and no hint of butterflies.

Q: How do you respond to inaccurate articles about you?

Michael Jackson : I don't pay any attention. The fans know the tabloid garbage is crap. They always say to me, "Let's have a tabloid-burning." It's terrible to try to assassinate one's character. I've had people come to me, and after meeting me, they start crying. I say, "Why are you crying?" They say, "Because I thought you would be stuck up, but you're the nicest person." I say, "Who gave you this judgment?" They tell me they read it. I tell them, "Don't you believe what you read."

Q: Do these rumors persist because you don't refute them?

Michael Jackson : No. I've done so much in the past. I did the most watched TV interview in history with Oprah Winfrey (in 1993). But (the media) tend to want to twist what you say and judge you. I want to keep it on the music and the art. I think about some of my favorite people who ever lived. If I could stand face to face with Walt Disney or Michelangelo, would I care what they do in their private life? I want to know about their art. I'm a fan.

Q: How do you shield yourself from being hurt by criticism?

Michael Jackson : Expecting it, knowing it's going to happen and being invincible, being what I was always taught to be. You stand strong with an iron fist, no matter what the situation."

Q: Critics refer to you as the self-proclaimed King of Pop. Did you choose that title?

Michael Jackson : I never self-proclaimed myself to be anything. If I called up Elizabeth Taylor right now, she would tell you that she coined the phrase. She was introducing me, I think at the American Music Awards, and said in her own words — it wasn't in the script — "I'm a personal fan, and in my opinion he is the king of pop, rock and soul." Then the press started saying "King of Pop" and the fans started. This self-proclaimed garbage, I don't know who said that.

Q: The New York concerts marked your first U.S. shows in 12 years. Were you nervous?

Michael Jackson : No. It was an honor to be back with my brothers again. The producer wanted a cavalcade of luminaries from different fields of endeavor. It was a great honor to have them salute me. It was heartwarming, a happy, fun occasion.

Q: Would you consider another tour with your brothers?

Michael Jackson : I don't think so. I would definitely do an album with them, but not a tour. They would love to tour. But I want to move on to other things. Physically, touring takes a lot out of you. When I'm on stage, it's like a two-hour marathon. I weigh myself before and after each show, and I lose a good 10 pounds. Sweat is all over the stage. Then you get to your hotel and your adrenaline is at its zenith and you can't fall asleep. And you've got a show the next day. It's tough.

Q: If you don't tour, how will you satisfy public demand as well as your need to perform?

Michael Jackson : I want to direct a special on myself and do songs that touch me. I want something more intimate, from the soul and heart, with just one spotlight.

Q: How did you react when Invincible topped the chart here and in a dozen countries?

Michael Jackson : It was a lovely feeling. I cried happy tears to see all the love.

Q: Invincible was several years in the making. Does your perfectionism slow the process?

Michael Jackson : It did take a while because I'm never happy with the songs. I'll write a bunch of songs, throw them out, write some more. People say, "Are you crazy? That's got to go on the album." But I'll say, "Is it better than this other one?" You only get 75 minutes on a CD, and we push it to the limit.

Q: Did you approach Invincible with a single theme in mind?

Michael Jackson : I never think about themes. I let the music create itself. I like it to be a potpourri of all kinds of sounds, all kinds of colors, something for everybody, from the farmer in Ireland to the lady who scrubs toilets in Harlem.

Q: Has it become easier to write songs over time?

Michael Jackson : It's the most effortless thing in the world because you don't do anything. I hate to say it like that, but it's the truth. The heavens drop it right into your lap, in its totality. The real gems come that way. You can sit at the piano and say, "OK, I'm going to write the greatest song ever written," and nothing. But you can be walking down the street or showering or playing and, boom, it hits you in the head. I've written so many like that. I'm playing a pinball machine, and I have to run upstairs and get my little tape recorder and start dictating. I hear everything in its totality, what the strings are going to do, what the bass is going to do, the harpsichord, everything.

Q: Is it difficult translating that sound to tape?

Michael Jackson : That's what's frustrating. In my head, it's completed, but I have to transplant that to tape. It's like (Alfred) Hitchcock said, "The movie's finished." But he still has to start directing it. The song is the same. You see it in its entirety and then you execute it.

Q: After such a long absence, did you have doubts about your current relevance?

Michael Jackson : Never. I have confidence in my abilities. I have real perseverance. Nothing can stop me when I put my mind to it.

Q: After Sept. 11, you wrote a benefit song, What More Can I Give? What's the status?

Michael Jackson : It's a mantra that soothes the soul. It's therapeutic. It's something our body has to have, like food. It's very important to understand the power of music. Whether you're in an elevator or a department store, music affects the way you shop, the way you treat your neighbor.

(Prince hands Jackson a drawing. "I appreciate it," Jackson says. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Prince: "No.")

Michael Jackson : Absolutely. It is tough because you're competing against yourself. Invincible is just as good or better than Thriller, in my true, humble opinion. It has more to offer. Music is what lives and lasts. Invincible has been a great success. When The Nutcracker Suite was first introduced to the world, it totally bombed. What's important is how the story ends.

(Prince surfaces again with another picture. "What did you promise me?" Jackson asks. "To be quiet?" Prince responds, then retreats.)

Q: How has fatherhood changed you?

Michael Jackson : In a huge way. You have to value your time differently, no doubt about it. It's your responsibility to make sure they're taken care of and raised properly with good manners. But I refuse to let any of it get in the way of the music or the dance or the performing. I have to play two different roles. I always wanted to have a big family, ever since I was in school. I was always telling my father I would outdo him. He had 10 children. I would love to have like 11 or 12 myself.

Q: What have you taught your children?

Michael Jackson : I try to make sure they're respectful and honorable and kind to everybody. I tell them, no matter what they do, work hard at it. What you want to do for a lifetime, be the best at it.

(Prince is staring. "Stop looking at me," Jackson says, smiling.)

Q: And what have your kids taught you?

Michael Jackson : A lot. (Parenthood) reminds you to do what the Bible has always told us. When the Apostles were arguing among themselves over who was the greatest in Jesus' eyes, he said, "None of you," and called over a little boy and said, "until you humble yourself like this child." It reminds you to be kind and humble and to see things through the eyes of children with a childlike wonderment. I still have that. I'm still fascinated by clouds and the sunset. I was making wishes on the rainbow yesterday. I saw the meteor shower. I made a wish every time I saw a shooting star.

Q: You've said you plan to home-school your kids. Given your fame, how can you provide a normal life for them?

Michael Jackson : You do the best you can. You don't isolate them from other children. There will be other kids at the school (on his property). I let them go out in the world. But they can't always go with me. We get mobbed and attacked. When we were in Africa, Prince saw a mob attack in a huge shopping mall. People broke so much stuff, running and screaming. My biggest fear is that fans will hurt themselves, and they do. I've seen glass break, blood, ambulances.

Q: Are you resentful that stardom stole your childhood?

Michael Jackson : Yeah. It's not anger, it's pain. People see me at an amusement park or with other kids having fun, and they don't stop and think, "He never had that chance when he was little." I never had the chance to do the fun things kids do: sleepovers, parties, trick-or-treat. There was no Christmas, no holiday celebrating. So now you try to compensate for some of that loss.

Q: Have you made peace with your father?

Michael Jackson : It's much better. My father is a much nicer person now. I think he realizes his children are everything. Without your family, you have nothing. He's a nice human being. At one time, we'd be horrified if he just showed up. We were scared to death. He turned out really well. I wish it wasn't so late.

Q: Did music offer an escape from childhood worries?

Michael Jackson : Of course. We sang constantly in the house. We sang group harmony while washing dishes. We'd make up songs as we worked. That's what makes greatness. You have to have that tragedy, that pain to pull from. That's what makes a clown great. You can see he's hurting behind the masquerade. He's something else externally. Chaplin did that so beautifully, better than anyone. I can play off those moments, too. I've been through the fire many times.

(Prince is back. He leans against the chair to gawk at the king of pops. "Stop looking at me," Jackson implores, clearly unnerved by the tyke's scrutiny. "You're not making this easy." Both of them chuckle, and Jackson warns teasingly, "You may not get that piece of candy.")

Q: Do your religious beliefs ever conflict with the sexy nature of your music or dancing?

Michael Jackson : No. I sing about things that are loving, and if people interpret it as sexy, that's up to them. I never use bad words like some of the rappers. I love and respect their work, but I think I have too much respect for parents and mothers and elderly people. If I did a song with bad words and saw an older lady in the audience, I'd cringe.

Q: But what about your trademark crotch-grabbing moves?

Michael Jackson : I started doing that with Bad. Martin Scorsese directed that short film in the subways of New York. I let the music tell me what to do. I remember him saying, "That was a great take! I want you to see it." So we pushed playback, and I went aaaah! I didn't realize I was doing that. But then everyone else started doing that, and Madonna, too. But it's not sexual at all.

Q: How are you spending your free time these days?

Michael Jackson : I like to do silly things — water-balloon fights, pie fights, egg fights. (Turning to Prince) You got a good one coming! I don't think I'll ever grow out of that. At my house, I built a water-balloon fort with two sides, a red team and a blue team. We have cannons that shoot water 60 feet and slingshots that shoot the balloons. We got bridges and places to hide. I just love it.

Q: After 38 years in show business, fans still mob you. Are you immune to adulation?

Michael Jackson : It's always a good feeling. I never take it for granted. I'm never puffed up with pride or think I'm better than the next-door neighbor. To be loved is a wonderful thing. That is the main reason I do this. I feel compelled to do it, to give people some sense of escapism, a treat to the eye and the ear. I think it's the reason I'm here.

Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

I especially that part as it's indeed 'tough' to explain that WRITING is EFFORTLESS... You just LISTEN to the story and TRY to keep up with what your muse babbles about :cheeky:

Q: Has it become easier to write songs over time?

Michael Jackson : It's the most effortless thing in the world because you don't do anything. I hate to say it like that, but it's the truth. The heavens drop it right into your lap, in its totality. The real gems come that way. You can sit at the piano and say, "OK, I'm going to write the greatest song ever written," and nothing. But you can be walking down the street or showering or playing and, boom, it hits you in the head. I've written so many like that. I'm playing a pinball machine, and I have to run upstairs and get my little tape recorder and start dictating. I hear everything in its totality, what the strings are going to do, what the bass is going to do, the harpsichord, everything.

Q: Is it difficult translating that sound to tape?

Michael Jackson : That's what's frustrating. In my head, it's completed, but I have to transplant that to tape. It's like (Alfred) Hitchcock said, "The movie's finished." But he still has to start directing it. The song is the same. You see it in its entirety and then you execute it.

MJJC Resident Writerwww.mjjcommunity.com

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Re: The Michael Jackson Interviews Thread

On Christmas Day of 2003, Michael sat down in a Los Angeles hotel to speak to Ed Bradley
of CBS's 60 Minutes news program.

'60 MINUTES' INTERVIEW

ED BRADLEY: What is your response to the allegations that were brought by the district attorney in Santa Barbara, that you molested this boy?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Totally false. Before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists. I would never hurt a child It’s totally false. I was outraged. I could never do something like that

ED BRADLEY: This is a kid you knew?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yes.

ED BRADLEY: How would you characterize your relationship with this boy?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’ve helped many, many, many children, thousands of children, cancer kids, leukemia kids. This is one of many.

ED BRADLEY: But tell me why you developed Neverland.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Because I wanted to have a place that I could create everything that I that I never had as a child. So, you see rides. You see animals. There’s a movie theater. I was always on tour, traveling. You know? And — I never got a chance to do those things. So, I compensated for the loss by — I have a good — I mean, I can’t go into a park. I can’t go to Disneyland, as myself. I can’t go out and walk down the street. There’s crowds, and bumper to bumper cars. And so, I create my world behind my gates. Everything that I love is behind those gates. We have elephants, and giraffes, and crocodiles, and every kind of tigers and lions. And — and we have bus loads of kids, who don’t get to see those things. They come up sick children, and enjoy it. They enjoy it in a pure, loving, fun way. It’s people with the dirty mind that think like that. I don’t think that way. That’s not me.

ED BRADLEY: And — and do you think people look at you and think that way today?

MICHAEL JACKSON: If they have a sick mind, yeah. And if they believe the trash they read in newspapers, yeah. And — and it’s not — what — just cause — remember something. Just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s the gospel. People write negatives things, cause they feel that’s what sells. Good news to them, doesn’t sell.

ED BRADLEY: So when he would come over what would he do? What would you do?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’ll tell you exactly. When I first saw him, he was total bald—headed, white as snow from the chemotherapy, very bony, looked anorexic, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. And he was so weak, I would have to carry him from the house to the game room, or push him in a wheelchair, to try to give him a childhood, a life. Cause I felt bad. Because I never had that chance, too, as a child. You know? That the— and so, I know what it— it felt like in that way. Not being sick, but not having had a childhood. So, my heart go out to those children I feel their pain.

MICHAEL JACKSON: He had never really climbed a tree. So, I had this tree that I have at Neverland. I call it, “My Giving Tree.” Cause I like to write songs up there. I’ve written many songs up there. So, I said, “You have to climb a tree. That’s part of boyhood. You just gotta do it.” And — I helped him up. And once he went up — up the tree, we looked down on the branches. And it was so beautiful. It was magical. And he loved it. To give him a chance to have a life, you know? Because he was told he was going to die. They told him. They told his — his parents prepare for his funeral, that’s how bad it was. And I put him on a program. I’ve helped many children doing this. I put him on a mental program.

ED BRADLEY: What was going through your mind when you’re taken into a police station, in handcuffs, to have a mug shot taken, that you know is gonna be shown around the world?

MICHAEL JACKSON: They did it to try and belittle me, to try and to take away my pride. But I went through the whole system with them. And at the end, I— I wanted the public to know that I was okay, even though I was hurting.

ED BRADLEY: What happened when they arrested you? What did they do to you?

MICHAEL JACKSON: They were supposed to go in, and just check fingerprints, and do the whole thing that they do when they take somebody in. They manhandled me very roughly. My shoulder is dislocated, literally. It’s hurting me very badly. I’m in pain all the time. This is, see this arm? This is as far as I can reach it. Same with this side over here.

ED BRADLEY: Because of what happened at the police station?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah. Yeah. At the police station. And what they did to me — if you — if you saw what they did to my arms — it was very bad what they did. It’s very swollen. I don’t wanna say. You’ll see. You’ll see.

ED BRADLEY: How did they do it? I mean, what, physically, what did they do?

MICHAEL JACKSON: With the handcuffs, the way they tied ‘em too tight behind my back —

ED BRADLEY: Behind your back?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah. And putting it, they put it in a certain position, knowing that it’s going to hurt, and affect my back. Now I can’t move. I — I — it keeps me from sleeping at night. I can’t sleep at night.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Then one time, I asked to use the restroom. And they said, “Sure, it’s right around the corner there.” Once I went in the restroom, they locked me in there for like 45 minutes. There was doo doo, feces thrown all over the walls, the floor, the ceiling. And it stunk so bad. Then one of the policemen came by the window. And he made a sarcastic remark. He said, “Smell — does it smell good enough for you in there? How do you like the smell? Is it good?” And I just simply said, “It’s alright. It’s okay.” So, I just sat there, and waited.

ED BRADLEY: For 45 minutes?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah, for 45 minutes. About 45 minutes. And then — then one cop would — come by, and say, “Oh, you’ll be out in — in a second. You’ll be out in a second.” Then there would be another ten minutes added on, then another 15 minutes added on. They did this on purpose.

ED BRADLEY: How did you feel when they went into Neverland, I mean, with a search warrant? I mean, what were they looking for? What did they take?

MICHAEL JACKSON: My room is a complete wreck. My workers told me. They said, “Michael, don’t go in your room.” They were crying on the phone, my employees. They said, “If you saw your room, you would cry.” I have stairs that go up to my bed. And they said, “You can’t even get up the stairs. The room is totally trashed.” And they had 80 policemen in this room, 80 policemen in one bedroom. That’s really overdoing it. They took knives, and cut open my mattresses with knives. C — just cut everything open.

ED BRADLEY: Did — did they take anything from Neverland?

MICHAEL JACKSON: A— I’m not sure what they took. They never gave me a list.

ED BRADLEY: But you’re saying that they destroyed your property?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yes, they did. And then they, what they did was they made everybody that work at the property, they locked everybody out of the house. They had the whole house to themselves to do whatever they wanted. And — they totally took advantage. They went into areas they weren’t supposed to go into — like my office. They didn’t have search warrants for those places. And they totally took advantage. And the room is a total, total wreck, they told me. I don’t think I wanna see it. I’m not ready to see it yet.

ED BRADLEY: So, you haven’t been back there?

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’ve been back there. But not in my bedroom. I won’t live there ever again. I’ll visit Neverland. It’s a house now. It’s not a home anymore. I’ll only visit there. What time is it? Cause I’m hurting. You know what? I’m — I’m hurting. I have to go pretty soon anyway. Yeah. Okay. I don’t feel good.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Somewhere greed got in there, and somebody — I — I can’t quite say. But it has to do with money. It’s Michael Jackson. Look what we have here. We can get money out of this. That’s exactly what happened.

ED BRADLEY: You had helped him with his cancer. What I don’t understand is why today and I know you say it’s money, but why would he turn around and say, “Michael Jackson sexually molested me,” if it weren’t true?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Because parents have power over children. They feel they have to do what their parents say. But the love of money is the root of all evil. And this is a sweet child. And to see him turn like this, this isn’t him. This is not him.

ED BRADLEY: So, you don’t think this comes from him? This —

MICHAEL JACKSON: No.

ED BRADLEY: — Comes from his parents?

MICHAEL JACKSON: No. This is not him. No. I know his heart.

ED BRADLEY: So — if you were innocent, why would you pay, I mean, to keep you quiet? I mean, why not go into court, and fight for your good name? I mean —

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’m not allowed to talk on that —

MARK GERAGOS: I’m gonna stop you for a second.

ED BRADLEY: Sure.

MARK GERAGOS: I mean remember what happened to him ten years ago. He was humiliated. He was — he went through where somebody — was examining him. Was photographing him. Was having him — humiliating him in the worst way in terms of looking at his private parts and photographing his private parts. And — and he was subjected to some of the most, just intrusive kinds of things that you could ever imagine. I can only try to put myself into that situation and — and say look, if money could make that situation go away, maybe that — that was the calculus then. I don’t know and I don’t wanna second guess it.

ED BRADLEY: But — but what you end up with is the public perception that this has happened not once, this has happened twice. That young boys have — have come forward to accuse him of — of sexual molestation over the last ten years. And he has made public comments about how he enjoys sharing his bed with children. Can you understand how the public might feel that, hey, maybe there’s something here. There’s a lot of smoke.

MARK GERAGOS: Well, look. There’s a lot of smoke. But a lot of the people who blow the smoke are — are twisting what’s happened. I understand when people say, now, there’s somebody else who came forward. But I — I think, in all fairness, most people get it. Most people understand that this case is not about anything but money.

ED BRADLEY: That British documentary last February — which you didn’t like —

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah, I didn’t like it.

ED BRADLEY: You — you said in that documentary that— that many children have slept in your bedroom.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah.

ED BRADLEY: You said, and — and I’m gonna quote here, “Why can’t you share your bed? A most loving thing to do is to share your bed with— with someone.”

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yes.

ED BRADLEY: As — as we sit here today, do you still think that it’s acceptable to share your bed with children?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Of course. Of course. Why not? If you’re gonna be a pedophile, if you’re gonna be Jack the Ripper, if you’re gonna be a murderer, it’s not a good idea. That I’m not. That’s how we were raised. And I met — I didn’t sleep in the bed with the child. Even if I did, it’s okay. I slept on the floor. I give the bed to the child.

ED BRADLEY: But given all that you’ve been through —

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yeah?

ED BRADLEY: Given the allegations, given the innuendo — why would you put yourself in a position where something like this could happen again?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Well, I’m always more cautious. But I will never stop helping and loving people the way Jesus said to. He said, “Continue to love. Always love. Remember children. Imitate the children.” Not childish, but childlike.

MARK GERAGOS: They were, at all times during that February 7 to March 10 period of time, whenever Michael was there, there was always a third party around. Always.

ED BRADLEY: What about the allegation that some kind of intoxicating agent, said to be wine, was given to this child to make him more pliable?

MARK GERAGOS: Ludicrous. I mean it’s ludicrous on its face. There are in excess of 100 employees at any one time at that ranch. There is full—time security at that ranch. There are people who are there at all times, day and night, 24—7, who are specifically instructed to make sure that people don’t do that. The kids are nowhere near alcohol and liquor.

ED BRADLEY: You’re a parent. You’ve got three children.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Yes.

ED BRADLEY: Would you allow your children to sleep in the bed with a grown man, who was not a relative, or to sleep in the bedroom?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Sure, if I know that person, trust them, and love them. That’s happened many times with me when I was little.

ED BRADLEY: Would you, as a parent, allow your children to sleep in the same bedroom with someone, who has the suspicions and allegations that have been made against you, and about you today? Would you allow that?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Someone —

ED BRADLEY: If you knew someone, who had the same —

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’m not —

ED BRADLEY: —kind of allegations —

MICHAEL JACKSON: Ed, I — I know exactly what you’re saying.

ED BRADLEY: — that were made against you — would you let your children —

MICHAEL JACKSON: My children?

ED BRADLEY: — sleep in that man’s bedroom?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Mmm, if I — if I knew the person personally. Cause I know how the press is, and how people can twist the truth, if I knew the person personally, absolutely yes. Absolutely. I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

ED BRADLEY: Do you know how this looks to a lot of people? I mean, do you understand that?

MICHAEL JACKSON: How does what look?

ED BRADLEY: How the fact that you —

MICHAEL JACKSON: Know why? People think sex. They’re thinking sex. My mind doesn’t run that way. When I see children, I see the face of God. That’s why I love them so much. That’s what I see.

ED BRADLEY: Do you know any other man your age, a 45-year-old man, who shares his bedroom with children?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Of course. Not for sex. No. That’s wrong.

ED BRADLEY: Well, let me — let me say, from my perspective, my experience, I don’t know any 45-year-old men, who are not relatives of the children, who share their bedroom with other children.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Well, what’s wrong with sharing your bed? I didn’t say I slept in the bed. Even if I did sleep in the bed, it’s okay. I am not going to do anything sexual to a child. It’s not where my heart is. I would never do anything like that. That’s not Michael Jackson. I’m sorry. That’s someone else.

ED BRADLEY: What — what has this done to your career?

MICHAEL JACKSON: What — what has it done to my career?

ED BRADLEY: What has it done to your career?

MICHAEL JACKSON: In what way?

ED BRADLEY: How has it impacted — you know —

MICHAEL JACKSON: I’m — my album —

ED BRADLEY: — touring, record sales —

MICHAEL JACKSON: — album is number one all over the world. All over the world. America is the only one, because I — I don’t wanna say too much.

ED BRADLEY: But it’s not number one in the United States?

MICHAEL JACKSON: It’s a conspiracy. Yeah. I’m getting tired.

ED BRADLEY: Michael, what would you say to you — your fans, who have supported you through all of this, and — and who today, some of them might have questions? What would you say to them?

MICHAEL JACKSON: Well, I would tell them I love them very much. And I— I— they’ve learned about me, and know about me from a distance. But if you really want to know about me, there’s a song I wrote, which is the most honest song I’ve ever written. It’s the most autobiographical song I’ve ever written. It’s called, “Childhood.” They should listen to it. That’s the one they really should listen to. And thank you for your support, the fans around the world. I love you with all my heart. I don’t take any of it for granted. Any of it. And I love them dearly, all over the world.